Prednisone can help prevent episodic cluster headache

Reuters Health - 03/12/2020 - Prednisone is better than placebo for short-term prevention of episodic cluster headaches and should be used as first-line treatment along with verapamil up-titration, according to a new multicenter randomized controlled trial. "This is the study that everyone's been waiting for," Dr. Mark Obermann of Asklepios Hospitals Schildautal in Seesen, Germany, the study's first author, told Reuters Health by phone. Prednisone is often prescribed to cluster-headache patients in the first few days of an episode, he noted, but there have been no large randomized controlled trials to determine whether prednisone is actually effective and at what dosage. Patients with cluster headache suffer excruciating head and face pain that can last for 15 minutes to three hours, Dr. Obermann and his colleagues explain in The Lancet Neurology. Attacks may occur every other day or up to eight times a day, and episodes can last for months. In episodi...

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Posted on 3 December, 202011 December, 2020