Efficacy of Greater Occipital Nerve and Supraorbital Nerve Blockade in The Treatment of Acute Migraine Attack

Abstract

Objective: Migraine is the most common neurological disorder among primary headaches that can cause loss of quality of life. Medical agents are generally used for the treatment and prophylaxis of acute migraine attack. However, the effectiveness of pericranial nerve blocks in the treatment and prophylaxis of acute attacks has been experienced for many years. In this study, we investigated the effectiveness of bilateral greater occipital nerve (GON) and supraorbital nerve (SON) blockade in terminating acute migraine attacks that did not improve with medical treatment.
 Material and Method: In this retrospective study, 191 patients with acute migraine attacks resistant to medical treatment were evaluated. First GON block was applied to all patients, SON block was applied to patients whose visual analog scale (VAS) did not fall below ‘5’ at the fifth minute after GON block. The zero, fifth and 30th mi-nute VAS results were evaluated.
 Results: 76.96 % of the patients were women. Subraorbital nerve blockade (22.51%) was applied in addition to those with a VAS value above 5 at the 5th minute after bilateral greater occipital nerve blockade. Pericranial nerve blockade including bilateral GON and SON blockade improved the VAS level in 97.4% of our cases (mean VAS; fifth min: 1.3769±1.9746, 30th min: 0.3979±1.3013).
 Conclusion: The results of our study show that pericranial nerve blockages are beneficial in the treatment of acute migraine attacks