OU conducting study on migraine treatment

by Brynn Burton
Staff Writer

Ohio University psychology faculty members are working with students as well as Athens and Columbus residents to determine whether combinations of drug and behavioral treatments are more effective in treating migraine headaches.

Participants in OU’s headache study, conducted at OU and in Columbus since last spring, experience frequent, disabling migraines at least once a week. They may participate for up to 20 months and can conclude their treatment if a method works early in the study. The study is backed by a $2.3 million grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes.

Kenneth Holroyd, OU psychology professor and conductor of the study, said the study is comparing the treatment of migraines with active and inactive drugs, behavioral migraine management and how the combination of the two work against migraines.

“The patients are given both the latest drug treatments such as Imitrex, and behavioral treatments such as controlling and preventing a migraine without the use of pharmaceuticals,” he said. “They are given the (drugs) that best work for them personally.”

In addition to pharmaceuticals, patients receive general relief medication, such as Excedrin, and anti-vomiting medication at the first sign of a migraine, Holroyd said.

The behavioral treatments include stress management and controlling blood flow to make the body naturally do what a medication would.

“We are evaluating single treatment versus combined treatment to see if behavioral management on top of medication can effectively work,” Bernadette Heckman, assistant research professor, said. “They have been primarily been worked on alone and individually.”

She said it is hoped participants will be able to control their migraines through behavior modifications once they are off medications.

The first patient enrolled in the study at OU about a year ago. The program in Columbus started at the same time.

“We are doing the same thing here in Columbus (as at OU), but on a bigger scale with more patients,” said Connie Cottrell, project manager in Columbus. “Currently we have 90 participants (total), with 75 percent in Columbus.”

The study requires about 240 participants and should end in June 2003. It will take another year to evaluate the results, Cottrell, an OU graduate and former student of Holroyd, said.

Holroyd said he will not know the outcome of the study until it is finished because it is a double-blind study. This means neither the prescribing physician nor the patient knows what medication they are on, nor if they are on an active or inactive medication. This is done so patients will not be prone to let the promise of the drug influence their mindset. A computer categorizes the patients randomly, and all of the information is kept separate from the researchers until the study is over.

Women constitute the majority of the study, because migraines primarily occur in women with the onset of menstruation when their levels of estrogen vary.

The headache lab at OU was established in 1977, and has conducted numerous studies with headaches, including other treatments with non-migraine headaches and the physiology of headaches.

The lab is planning to study how migraines start by looking at migraines in adolescents. Most women experience migraine headaches for the first time around age 15, because of puberty.

The NIH is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and about 80 percent of its $23.6 billion federal fiscal year budget goes toward more than 35,000 projects nationwide, Don Ralbovsky, NIH spokesman, said.

— Tim Pappa contributed to this story