According to a recent study, infusions of the local anesthetic lidocaine may be helpful for people with chronic migraine who don’t respond to any other treatment.

The study analysed the information of 609 patients who were admitted to a hospital with chronic migraine and treated with infusions of lidocaine to assess the short- and medium-term effects. The participated patients had experienced at least 8 days of headache per month for at least 6 months and failed to respond to or had contradictions to the traditional medicine for migraine. During the study they received lidocaine infusions over several days along with other aggressive drug treatments for migraine, such as ketorolac, magnesium, dihydroergotamine, methylprednisolone, and neuroleptics.

As a result, most patients (87.8%) experienced rapid pain relief and a decrease in both average pain and the number of headache days per month that extended out to 1 month. 43% of patients even maintained improvement at 1 month.

It is worth mentioning, that some patients experienced nausea and vomiting during the treatment but these side effects were mild.

Researchers highlight that their study is observational and therefore can’t establish cause and effect relationship. A prospective, randomized, double-blind trial is needed to confirm these results.

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