Recently, that changed Carolyn began taking the drug flurbiprofen. Now she can eat and drink and she can sleep late if she needs more rest.
Doctor says flurbiprofen provides a new life to those who suffer from migraine headaches. It can be taken every day to prevent the headaches from starting. Or it can be taken to reduce pain after the headaches begin. Doctors must order flurbiprofen for their patients with migraine headaches.
The United States Food and Drug Administration approved the first medicine for migraine headaches that people can buy without a doctor's order.
Developments in medicine have not yet helped Richard, who instead of suffers from cluster headaches. However, like Carolyn, Richard is living a more normal life because of new medicine.
Doctors say cluster headaches most often strike men who are more than thirty years old. About one person in every thousand people gets the headaches. Richard was thirty-seven when he had his first cluster headache.
Richard says he felt a terrible pain in his face, around one of his eyes. He says the pain felt as if someone was stabbing him in the eye with a knife. After several hours the pain stopped. But soon he had another headache. Then he had another. Some lasted only thirty minutes. Others lasted as long as three hours.
Like other victims of cluster headaches, Richard had them in a series each time. Sometimes he had no headaches for months. Then he would have another series of headaches causing severe pain.
It was suggested that the headaches might be caused by worrying or emotional problems. Yet, Richard could not find any connection between unpleasant events in his life and the cluster headaches. He could not link them to anything he ate or drank.
For several years, doctors tried different drugs to treat Richard's headaches. The most effective treatment was a chemical called capsaicin. Capsaicin is found in red peppers. It gives the peppers a hot, spicy taste.