New guidelines for doctors will help them treat migraine headaches that are severe enough to bring patients to the emergency department.
According to the guidelines, emergency physicians should avoid injecting migraine patients with morphine or morphine-like drugs, known as opioids. Instead, they should use one of two other intravenous drugs or an injection of sumatriptan.
“These are the first-ever guidelines for managing migraine in the emergency department (ED),” Dr. Mia Minen of NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City, told Reuters Health by email. The guidelines were needed, she said, because over 25 different medications are used to treat migraine in the ED, some of which don’t have good data to support their use.
