ADULTS AND CHILDREN

If you or someone close to you suffers from migraines, you know what a debilitating condition it can be. Severe throbbing pain is often aggravated by physical activity and exposure to light, sound and smells. Lasting for hours or even days, migraines can also cause nausea and vomiting, blurred vision and dizziness.

But researchers at Wichita’s Alliance for Multispecialty Research are studying several medications that would help treat migraine symptoms or even prevent them – and that’s a relief to anyone who suffers from the often crippling condition. “Migraines cause the most disruption of normal life of any neurologic condition,” said Dr. Terry Klein of Wichita, a partner at AMR. “It affects productivity, quality of life for students, for employees — it has a significant economic impact. We’re looking for safer and more effective acute care treatment of migraines.”

AMR is conducting two different studies — one for adults and another for children — and is seeking participants for both studies.

Adult Study

AMR is exploring how an existing and frequently used hormone, oxytocin, can improve or alleviate the symptoms of migraine sufferers. Oxytocin is a hormone that plays a crucial role in social bonding and reproduction in mammals, including humans. It is produced by the hypothalamus, a region of the brain, and released into the bloodstream by the pituitary gland.

The medical community has used oxytocin to treat painful nerve problems in the past, but this study looks at how oxytocin might prevent migraines. Researchers are looking at what the hormone does to nerves and inflammation in regard to headaches. The medication being tested is a nasal spray.

“This is a novel approach — a new indication for an existing medicine,” Klein said. The study is in its second phase. Researchers are looking for participants over age 18 who have 14 headache days in a month.

Pediatric Study

The other study being conducted at AMR is for children ages 6–18 who experience two to eight migraines a month. Now in its third phase, the study looks at a new class of medication that treats migraine pain by a different method than those typically taken by migraine sufferers.

“Migraines create a throbbing-type pain, so for a long time treatment has been focused on getting control of the blood vessels within the brain,” Klein said. “These medications, called triptans, are very good and they go to a receptor that’s on the nerves to help the pain, but the medication also has an effect on the blood vessels.”

That is concerning for patients with known vascular disease or history of heart attack or stroke. But this new type of medication won’t have an effect on blood vessels, so theoretically it’s safer for people who have cardiovascular compromise.

Researchers believe the treatment being studied will target sensory nerve receptors — the nerves that give the pain sensation in a migraine — to get rid of migraine symptoms. “This new class of medication was developed because of the older medications. Researchers saw there wasn’t an effect on the blood vessels but there was an effect on the sensory nerves,” Klein said.

AMR hopes that both studies will help bring medications to market that will safely and effectively eliminate migraine symptoms or prevent migraines altogether — and make migraine pain a thing of the past.

Written by Alexis Evans

In 1997, Angela Razook-Wright had a vision to build an answering service that targeted apartment communities throughout the Oklahoma City area. Known as “Inphonemation” for many years, RazookWright says, “Our vision was to build an answering service that solved all the complaints and problems with traditional live answering services.” After phenomenal growth over the next decade, in 2006 the company’s name was changed to Answer Advantage. As the company continued to grow, significant equipment upgrades were required to service the medical industry and to become HIPAA compliant, and these changes propelled the company to expand nationwide.

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