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Have you seen improvement in non-migraine-type headaches with the usage of drugs targeting CGRP?

2 Answers
Mednet MemberInvited Expert
Neurology · University of California, Los Angeles
Answered on

For prevention, I have only used the 4 monoclonal antibodies or the 2 preventive gepants for documented migraine with and without aura, and also for cluster headache. I tend to use the one that is approved for cluster headache, eptinezumab, at the higher dose of 300 mg via IV infusion.

For acute care, some headaches are clearly migraine and respond well to a gepant, and some are much closer to tension-type headaches and may still respond. Milder migraine attacks can phenotypically look like tension-type headaches.

Some attacks of trigeminal autonomic cephalgia, other than cluster headache, may also respond to CGRP blocking drugs preventively. That would be considered an off-label use.

Chronic migraine with medication overuse headache is qui...

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Mednet MemberInvited Expert
Neurology · Greater Boston Headache Center at Boston Advanced Medicine
Answered on

In general, I would say that with CGRP-targeted medications, antibodies, or gepants, I have seen improvement across the board. I can also, however, remember cases with chronic migraine and daily and continuous headache, in which the migraine headaches improved, but the patient was left with the daily and continuous headache. These patients were, nevertheless, very happy, and I tried to help them further by adding a tricyclic like imipramine or nortriptyline (not amitriptyline or doxepin because of the weight gain that often occurs with those medications).

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