Favorable Response to Analgesics Does Not Predict a Benign Etiology of Headache

Abstract

A favorable response to analgesics including triptans should not be used to exclude a serious secondary cause of HA.

Avoiding Misdiagnosis in Patients with Neurological Emergencies

“…In some patients, the headache improves after analgesics including triptans [15]. Some patients present with prominent vomiting or fever and neck pain or with hypertension, each of which can divert the physician's diagnosis to other less serious problems such as gastroenteritis, viral syndrome, or hypertensive crisis [11, 12].…”

Guidelines for controlled trials of drugs in migraine: Third edition. A guide for investigators

“…Admittedly, many patients in clinical practice do not meet all ICHD-II criteria for migraine (i.e. probable migraine) and yet respond to conventional anti-migraine drugs (111). These observations underscore the fact that operational, symptoms-based criteria are not fully specific.…”

Sumatriptan improves postoperative quality of recovery and reduces postcraniotomy headache after cranial nerve decompression

“…It blunts the pain transmission through the trigeminovascular system and might be a useful analgesic for headache secondary to surgical pathology. [11][12][13] The rapid onset of action of sumatriptan could potentially be useful for immediate postoperative management of headache, but it has not been tested for treatment of postcraniotomy headache. [14][15][16][17][18] We hypothesized that sumatriptan is helpful in the management of headache and its associated symptoms after MVD, and that this is associated with improvement in the quality of recovery.…”