What is Medication Withdrawal Headache and How will I cope with it?

On stopping long term painkillers there is an immediate increase in head pain that usually makes the painkiller habit start up again.

It will happen to almost everyone who tries to stop the painkillers that cause medication overuse headache.

To be unable to withdraw painkiller medication is very unfortunate.

The outlook for people who can withdraw medication is usually very good, with about 80% improving significantly.

If you know what to expect it can help.

1. Headaches will usually get worse before they get better.
2. The Duration of Medication Withdrawal Headache
• The average length of time for a medication withdrawal headache is 9 days, but in some it is as long as 14 days.

  The first three days are usualy the worst.

  The duration of withdrawal headache is shorter in people who have overused triptan drugs - it's more like 4 days on average.

3. Other symptoms will occur apart from worse headaches
• Other symptoms occured alongside worsening headaches, including restlessness, nausea and vomiting and tremor. In one study these lasted up to 3 weeks.
4. Treatment with Prednisolone might help
• In one study, 100mg of Prednisolone (US-Prednisone) was given for the first 5 days of medication withdrawal to 10 people.

  They were compared to 10 people who did not know they were receiving a dummy drug ( a placebo).

  People on the real prednisolone experienced about 22 hours of severe headache in the first 72 hours of treatment.

  This compared to 36 hours out of 72 hours for people given no prednisolone (they were given a placebo or dummy drug).

  Everybody in the dummy drug group experienced a withdrawal headache.

  2 people in the prednisolone group experienced no withdrawal headache whatsoever.

5. Tizanidine in combination with NSAID-type anti-inflammatory drugs
.
• In 46 people, Tizanidine was increased by 2mg every 5 days until an maximum dose of 16mg daily.

  Anti-inflammatories could be taken alongside this if headaches worsened.

  The combination of Tizanidine at an average dose of 3.2mg (a very low dose) and anti-inflammatory led to 69% of the 46 people studied breaking the cycle of daily headaches.