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Inhaled Drug Offers New Hope For Migraines

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Oct 1, 2009 1:00 pm US/Mountain

Inhaled Drug Offers New Hope For Migraines

NEW YORK (CBS) ― Migraine headaches are a common illness, affecting more than 30 million people in the United States. When they strike, sufferers say common medications kick in too slowly to ease the pain.

Now, a promising new inhaled drug takes action almost instantly, and sufferers hope it will ease their pain, CBS station WCBS-TV reported.

Just turning on the lights can send 26-year-old Sarah Keiser into a painful episode.

"It goes from my eye, like a lightning bolt, back through my head," Keiser says. "It's just very sharp, very painful."

The triggers of her migraine headaches are common ones, including foods like peanuts and her all-time favorite: chocolate.

"It was really hard when I discovered that was one of my triggers," Keiser says.

When migraines strike, even simple things – like playing with her dogs or reading – become impossible.

"I've tried everything," Keiser says. "Nothing worked."

Nothing worked, that is, until she turned to Dr. Stephen Silberstein at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, where they're testing a revolutionary migraine treatment that's inhaled.

"You take a deep breath, it activates, and the material goes into your lungs – and within 10 minutes, you get headache relief," Dr. Silberstein says. "The medication is dihydroergotamine, or DHE."

Until now, DHE has only been available as an injection. The inhaled version is called Levadex, and the Jefferson study showed it works just as well.

"The drug gets rapidly absorbed into the lungs and into the bloodstream," Dr. Silberstein says.

That rapid absorption gets the medication into the brain and nerves to stop the pain, without causing any serious side effects.

"It worked really well," Keiser says. "This is a life-saver because I can actually live my life."

Now, Keiser can be on a computer without worrying that it will bring on a migraine, and she's even headed back to the beach with her husband, with sunshine no longer a dreaded trigger.

According to researchers, the new inhaled formulation had no serious side effects and provided pain relief for 48 hours after the first dose. The makers of the drug hope to achieve approval from the Food and Drug Administration in the coming months.


(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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