Go-to Migraine Drug actually does nothing to relieve dizziness symptoms

A medicine that is often prescribed for migraines actually seems to do little to ease vestibular vestibular, which causes dizziness along with more typical symptoms such as headaches and sensitivity to light. This despite the drug, called Rizatriptan, which is sometimes recommended for these spell moldings of migraines.

Research in vestibular migraine treatment has been largely inconsistent, showing mixed results for a number of drugs, says Jeffrey Staab at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. A few recent medications such as galcanezumab may reduce how often such attacks occur, but so far no randomized attempts had tested that whigraine drugs relieve vestibular symptoms during an episode itself.

To tackle this gap, Staab and his colleagues recruited 134 adults with vestibular migraines, which we asked to take eith 10 milligrams of rizatriptan or a placebo in the beginning of vestibular symptoms, such as balance problem or the senses of spinning, under a total of 307 moderate-to-swover episodes. They are assessed their symptoms of scale from 0 to 3 at several times until the episode was resolved.

An hour after taking the medication – when Rizatriptan reaches its highest concentration in the bloodstream – it was no more effective than a placebo to associate symptoms, despite the fact that the drug was often credited for its rapid action. People in both groups were also equally likely to turn to backup medicine after the required 1-hour wait.

After 24 hours, Rizatriptan seemed to give slightly better relief to sensitivity to movement, light and sound, but not for dizziness. Participants also reported marginally higher scores for physical well -being as their energy level and ability to perform daily tasks compared to placebo, but without any different in mental well -being or side effect of side effect.

Rizatriptan belongs to a class of drugs called triptans, which are generally effective in treating migraine headaches, but may not work for vestibular symptoms, says Staab.

The results suggest that brain roads involved in vestibular migraines – the vestibular systems that are “primitive quite” from an evolutionary perspective – lack sensitivity to triptans of reasons that have not yet been investigated, says Peter Goadsby at King’s College London. But vestibular migraines should not be classified as a separate state from other migraines, he says. Rather, their symptoms of “little twist” in migraine patients that justify their own targeted treatment strategy.

“It says to other clinicians that you have to ask about these symptoms,” says Goadsby. “And if you sometimes treat with vestibular migraines – for example, with a triptan – you need to be prepared that it cannot work and to understand that this does not mean that the patient is difficult or unreasonable.”