38 million Americans suffer from nausea, intense sensitivity to light, and some of the other debilitating symptoms of migraine headaches. Finally, there are new treatments to help them.
Jessica Ailani, MD, director of the MedStar Georgetown Headache Center, had been treating a woman for several years with Botox injections, a standard treatment to relieve frequent, debilitating migraine. The patient, a health care researcher, was doing okay but not great, so she asked if any other options might work better.
Ailani decided to try galcanezumab, a new medication in a class called calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) inhibitors. A few visits later, the woman reported publishing three scientific papers in the past seven months — more than her output for the previous eight years.
“She said, that’s the difference — the cognitive clarity, being myself, being able to function. I can make a commitment because I know I’m going to feel good,” Ailani recalls. “She said I’m back to that person I was 20 years ago.” (…)