Lidocaine Hydrochloride Nasal Solution
                             
There are numerous ways of classifying headaches, including (1) vascular headaches; (2) tension-type (muscle contraction) headaches; and (3) traction and inflammatory headaches.

The first group, the vascular headaches, include migraines and cluster headaches.

    MIGRAINES
Migraine headaches affect an estimated 16-18 million Americans.  Migraines are periodic headaches, usually unilateral (one-sided) in onset, but they may become generalized.  They are associated with irritability and nausea and often with photophobia, vomiting, constipation and diarrhea.  Pain is usually limited to the head but may include the face and the neck.  Migraine is more common in women than in men, usually occurring in the 2nd and 3rd decades of life.  Factors involved may include stress, fatigue, certain psychological patterns, diet, hypoglycemia, and hormonal changes.

    CLUSTER HEADACHES
Cluster headaches occur primarily in males at a ration of about five males to one female.  In contrast to migraine headaches, cluster headaches only rarely involve a hereditary history.  The clinical picture involves pain lasting from a few minutes to several hours, most often 30-45 minutes.  It is severe and burning and always unilateral (one-sided), although an attack can vary from side to side, it almost never occurs on both sides at the same time.  The pain may be so severe that the patient feels better walking around as apposed to patients with migraine who often prefer to lie down.  A chronic cluster headache is defined by attacks occurring for more than a year with out remissions or with remissions lasting less than 14 days.

TREATMENTS
Traditional drugs of choice for treating migraine and cluster headaches have been many.  A therapy may be either prophylactic or abortive.  If headaches are experienced only once every month or 2, abortive therapy may be preferable.  Compounded Lidocaine HCL nasal solution is a local anesthetic which has been prescribed by physicians in abortive therapy.

Our compounding pharmacists can custom make this and several other alternatives to those medications which target migraine pain quickly and provide rapid relief, with few side effects, and less cost.  These include:

Notes:
1 Nappi et al. Effectiveness of piroxicam fast-dissolving formulations sublingually administered in the symptomatic treatment of migraine without aura. Headache. 1993;33(6):296-300. 
2 Schoenen J, Lenaerts M. High dose riboflavin as a prophylactic treatment of migraine: results of an open pilot study. Cephalalgia. 1994;14:328-9.