Medication overuse headache

[Michiko]

Medication overuse headache is a chronic headache that occurs greater than 15 days/month in patients who regularly overuse headache drugs for greater than 3 months. It usually develops in people with migraine or tension-type headache. Treatment consists of stopping the overused headache drug, managing withdrawal symptoms, and using drugs to prevent the underlying headache disorder.
(See also Approach to the Patient With Headache.)
Prevalence of medication overuse headache is 1 to 2% in the general population. It is more common among women than men; most people with this type of headache have underlying episodic migraine or tension-type headache.
Patients who develop this disorder take frequent or excessive doses of analgesic (eg, triptans for ≥ 10 days/month), often with incomplete relief.