Abstract.
Patients with chronic headache arise many problems in clinical management, often strictly related to medication overuse. IHS classification did not clear the different clinical presentation and a chapter dedicated to this problem is lacking. This condition is very frequently associated with psychiatric illness, so that the clinical features become more complex over the years. Most of patients share a past clinical condition of episodic migraine; this aspect is very important facing the therapeutical phase, because after discontinuing medication overuse, if present, the treatment must be direct toward this disease. To treat a patient with analgesic, or ergotamine, or triptan abuse, require much caution because stopping the drug may arise new problems, such as different headache, abstinence syndrome, epileptic seizures etc. We review the different possibility that we have to manage the overuser patient.
Similar content being viewed by others
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Frediani, F., Cannatà, A., Magnoni, A. et al. The patient with medication overuse: clinical management problems. Neurol Sci 24 (Suppl 2), s108–s111 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s100720300054
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s100720300054