‘Patients get relief’: Researchers recommending nerve blockers to treat migraines

The research recommends occipital nerve blocks should be offered in emergency rooms to treat acute migraine attacks. 

Calgary neurologist Dr. Serena Orr spent her career researching migraine attacks and trying to bring patients relief from the painful symptoms.

But it wasn’t until she moved to Calgary that she gained a whole new perspective with a migraine attack of her own.

“I had mild headaches in all the other places I lived but didn’t think anything of it. It was during COVID. I couldn’t get off the couch. I had severe nausea and brain fog. When the fog started to fade, I realized I didn’t have COVID. I had experienced a severe migraine attack,” Orr said.

“I didn’t understand how bad it was until I experienced it myself. It is super ironic.”

Orr, an associate professor at the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine, worked in collaboration with researchers at the University of Calgary’s Hotchkiss Brain Institute and the Barrow Neurological Institute at Dignity Health St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona.

The findings are published in “Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain” and update the 2016 guidelines of the American Headache Society for the management of migraine attacks in emergency departments.

The update reviewed 26 studies from the past nine years that met the criteria involving migraines and visits to emergency departments to bring the treatment recommendations up to date.

“This update marks a major change in emergency department migraine care and implementing these treatments can improve patient outcomes and reduce reliance on opioids,” said study co-lead Dr. Jennifer Robblee, a neurologist and migraine and headache disorders specialist at Barrow Neurological Institute.