• Signe B Munksgaard, Lars Bendtsen, and Rigmor H Jensen.
• Danish Headache Centre, University of Copenhagen, Glostrup Hospital, Denmark.
• Cephalalgia. 2012 Aug 1; 32 (11): 834-44.

BackgroundEvidence for optimal medication-overuse headache treatment is lacking. Some experts suggest reduced symptomatic medication with prophylactics from the start of withdrawal, while others suggest a two-month drug-free period with multidisciplinary education.AimTo examine the acceptability, feasibility and outcome of these two regimes in a non-randomised open-label study.MethodsPatients able to undergo outpatient detoxification, with medication-overuse headache that had previously been unsuccessfully treated by specialists and without significant co-morbidities were treated with (A) individual withdrawal with restricted symptomatic medication and prophylactics from Day 1 or (B) a two-month drug-free period and multidisciplinary education in groups. All patients received close one-year follow-up.ResultsEighty-six of 98 patients completed follow-up. Both treatments proved highly effective-80.0% of Group A and 85.4% of Group B were cured of medication-overuse headache. Headache-frequency reduction was 40.2% in Group A and 38.4% in group B. In 48.9% of group A and 48.8% of group B, headache-frequency reduction was >50%. Programme B required fewer resources from the staff and only 61.9% of these patients needed prophylactics after two months compared with 84.8% in programme A.ConclusionsBoth structured detoxification programmes proved highly effective with one-year close follow-up in previously treatment-resistant patients with medication-overuse headache. We suggest multidisciplinary education for patients in groups and delaying initiation of prophylactics until after the detoxification.

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