Migraine Clinical Research Gives Participants Early Access to Potential New Treatments

Clinical Trials Group, Collaborative NeuroScience Network is Enrolling Participants now for Clinical Trials

Severe headaches and migraines can be so debilitating it can cause blindness, induce vomiting, and cause other severe side-effects. Scientists and doctors have been working for years to find a cure, a treatment to stop migraines, or even prevent them from happening in the first place, and they are doing this research right here in Southern California.

Migraines are often under-diagnosed because people sometimes confuse the symptoms for a severe headache, or know that they have migraines but don’t know that there are investigational treatments available that could help. The symptoms of migraines may vary between individuals, but they often include:

- Severe headaches/pain - Mood changes - Neck Stiffness - Food Cravings - Temporary blindness or vision phenomena (seeing shapes, flashes, objects) - Difficulty speaking - Weakness

A single migraine can be very painful and debilitating, but there are also people who suffer from chronic migraines. To be diagnosed with chronic migraines, you must have eight or more migraines per month, with each headache lasting four hours or more. There are an estimated 3.2 million people with chronic migraines in America, but only 36% of people with chronic migraines are properly diagnosed.

Chronic migraines can invade every part of your life, whether it forces you to miss important meetings, tests at school, or other important events. Chronic migraines don’t only affect you, they also effect the people around you, too.

If you suffer from chronic migraines, know that you may have options available that may be able to help. A clinical study is now enrolling that aims to learn more about chronic migraines and potentially find a treatment.

Migraines can be triggered by a variety of internal and external forces such as; stress, changes in sleep, food, or even the weather. In some cases this means you can develop strategies to reduce the risk of migraines or gain some control over when they happen. For example, by keeping to a consistent nighttime schedule you can make sure you get enough sleep. By living in California sufferers can mostly avoid the weather from causing a migraine attack. Except for this year which has seen significantly more rainfall and storms than most previous years combined.

The biggest challenge for clinical research is recruitment. New treatments cannot be approved without clinical trials, and clinical trials cannot be completed without participants.

If you knew that your participation in a clinical trial could possibly help you and future generations avoid your struggle, would you participate? If you said yes, you are in the majority. Yet, despite the majority of Americans being willing to participate, only a fraction of them actually join. The biggest reasons why more people don’t participate is because they don’t know about clinical trials, or they don’t understand clinical research.

Clinical research studies is the process scientists and doctors go through to test and measure the safety and efficacy of new investigative treatments before they can be released to market. Every current drug and treatment has to go through this process by law. Clinical trials are regulated by the FDA and Independent Review Boards which ensure they follow safety and ethics guidelines. The clinical research process can be broken down into four phases. The process starts with phase 1 Safety, which is then followed by 2 phases of measuring effectiveness. During these phases doctors search to find out if the new investigative treatments are effective, and/or more effective than existing treatments.

Information about clinical trials is easily accessible online. Finding local trials and signing up is easy. There are several resources available including www.cnstrial.com/ migraines or by phone at (844)424-9494. If you are ready to participate in a migraine clinical trial and suffer from eight or more migraines per month, contact CNS today!