Daily sumatriptan for detoxification from rebound

Medications which provide symptomatic relief from headache can transform episodic migraine into chronic daily headache by propagating the daily headache, causing "rebound." It is possible to restore the episodic migraine pattern by using an inpatient course of intravenous dihydroergotamine. This study was undertaken to explore whether it was possible to use oral sumatriptan in the outpatient setting as a bridge to detoxification for patients with chronic daily headache due to medication overuse. All patients had previously met International Headache Society (IHS) criteria for episodic migraine and currently had greater than 15 days of headache per month for greater than 1 month. These patients were advised to take 25 mg sumatriptan by mouth three times a day for 10 days or until they were headache-free for 24 hours. Results reveal that of the 26 patients who started the protocol, 58% had reverted to an episodic migraine pattern at 1 month, and 69% were no longer having chronic daily headache at 6 months. This study demonstrates that it is possible to detoxify patients with rebound headaches using oral sumatriptan during the withdrawal period in an outpatient setting.