A drug-free treatment for migraine which, it is claimed, alleviates
pain in sufferers plagued by the chronic condition was described by
doctors yesterday as an "exciting innovation".
The hand-held device, which delivers a brief magnetic pulse to the
back of the head, reduced the frequency of headaches in more than half
of patients prescribed it in a clinical trial.
The findings were
presented at the European Headache and Migraine Trust International Congress in London yesterday. They have not been peer reviewed or
published in a medical journal.
Migraine affects an estimated
eight million people in Britain. It is caused by an "oversensitive"
brain which reacts to triggers such as fatigue, hunger, stress or the
weather with a throbbing, headache, often accompanied by nausea and
visual disturbances.
Specialists at migraine clinics in London,
Bath, Hull, Exeter, Liverpool and Aberdeen prescribed the device to
patients, of whom almost three-quarters (73 per cent) reported a
reduction in pain. Almost two-thirds said associated symptoms such as
nausea were improved. No figures for the number of patients involved in
the trial, the source of funding or the cost of the device were
available.
Source - Independent
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