Administering Oxygen May Not Be the Best Treatment for Migraine Headaches

Migraine headaches are painful, often accompanied by light and noise sensitivity and even nausea. Primarily used to treat cluster headaches, studies have been conducted to determine whether oxygen is a feasible treatment for migraine headaches as well.

Migraine sufferers fight their battle on two fronts. The first battle is prevention through eliminating triggers in their lifestyle. The second is treatment of an ongoing migraine headache. Both of these issues are important and oxygen is being studied as a both a treatment and a prevention tool.

According to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, migraines are commonly triggered by outside influences such as dairy products, eggs, citrus fruits, wheat products, nuts, onions, corn and nut based products, and other fruits. A migraine headache is typically described by the sufferer as throbbing or pulsating pain, usually only on one side of the head. Migraines can last anywhere from six to 24 hours and the sufferer usually prefers to lie down in a quiet, dark space.

Oxygen has been used to treat cluster headaches in patients, but may have been found to be successful at treating migraine headaches by Dr. George Sands of the Beth Israel Medical Center, NY. The two types of oxygen therapy available for migraine sufferers are normobaric therapy and hyperbaric therapy.

The patient inhales 100-percent oxygen at normal room pressure during normobaric therapy. During hyperbaric therapy the patient breathes the pure oxygen at higher pressures in a hyperbaric chamber. According to Science Daily, there have been at least five studies comparing hyperbaric and normobaric treatments. The results of the studies varied and were inconclusive regarding the validity of either treatment. However, in every study the use of the hyperbaric treatment was more effective than the normobaric treatment.

Unfortunately, these results have shown two things. It would be unreasonable for a migraine sufferer to use a hyperbaric chamber for oxygen treatment due to cost, availability, and the level of success for prevention is inconclusive at best. It is the opinion of the Center for the Advancement of Health that it would be reasonable to believe that most physicians will continue to use other migraine headache treatments due to the limited availability and cost of hyperbaric chambers and the inconclusiveness of the oxygen treatment as a whole.

References

George Sands, M.D.; Oxygen Therapy for Headaches; Beth Israel Medical Center; New York, New York; National Headache Foundation; http://www.headaches.org/education/Headache_Topic_Sheets/Oxygen_Therapy

Soma Sahai-Srivastava, MD; Director of Neurology Ambulatory Care Services, LAC and USC Medical Center, Department of Neurology; Pathophysiology and Treatment of Migraine and Related Headache;, University of Southern California; Sep. 4, 2008; http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1144656-overview

The Natural Approach to Migraines; Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine; http://www.pcrm.org/health/prevmed/migraine.html

Center for the Advancement of Health (2008, July 17). Oxygen Therapy Might Ease Pain Of Migraine, Cluster Headaches. ScienceDaily; http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080715204841.htm