A Critical Evaluation on MOH Current Treatments

Migraine is the most frequent neurological disorder observed in clinical practice characterized by moderate to severe pain attacks associated with neurological, gastrointestinal, and dysautonomic symptoms. Each year, 2.5% of patients with episodic migraine develop chronic migraine (CM). CM is characterized by high frequency of the attacks that may result into chronic intake of abortive medications. Nearly, the 70% of CM patients referring to tertiary head centers show acute pain medications overuse that may lead to the development of medication overuse headache (MOH). The management of MOH requires three steps: (1) education, (2) withdrawal of the overuse drug and detoxification, and (3) re-prophylaxis. In the last years, several real-life prospective studies provided further evidence in clinical setting of the onabotulinumtoxinA 155–195 U efficacy for the headache prophylaxis in CM with MOH patients. There is a general agreement on two factors: (1) withdrawal of the overuse drug is condicio sine qua non to reverse the pattern to medium–low-frequency migraine, and (2) the focus of management needs to shift from acute treatment of pain to prevention of headache. CM patients close to developing MOH, patients with high-frequency episodic migraine, and those already abusing of drugs require special attention and should refer to tertiary headache centers. For all of them, a solution could be an “early treatment.” Early should be their referral to a tertiary headache center, early should be the withdrawal of the overuse drug and a proper detoxification, and perhaps early should be the start of a preventative therapy.