TY - JOUR T1 - Breaking the cycle of medication overuse headache JF - Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine JO - Cleve Clin J Med SP - 236 LP - 242 DO - 10.3949/ccjm.77a.09147 VL - 77 IS - 4 AU - Stewart J. Tepper AU - Deborah E. Tepper Y1 - 2010/04/01 UR - http://www.ccjm.org/content/77/4/236.abstract N2 - When patients who have frequent, disabling migraines take medications to relieve their symptoms, they run the risk that the attacks will increase in frequency to daily or near-daily as a rebound effect comes into play. This pattern, called medication overuse headache, is more likely to happen with butalbital and opioids than with migraine-specific drugs, as partial responses lead to recurrence, repeat dosing, and, eventually, overuse. Breaking the cycle involves weaning the patient from the overused medications, setting up a preventive regimen, and setting strict limits on the use of medications to relieve acute symptoms. ER -