How to use monoclonal antibodies for migraine in primary care

The University of Cincinnati's Vincent Martin told Medscape that every primary care clinician should know about monoclonal antibodies for preventing migraines that are changing the lives of patients.

"These should be primary care meds," said Martin, MD, professor in the Department of Internal Medicine in UC's College of Medicine and director of the Headache and Facial Pain Center at the University of Cincinnati Gardner Neuroscience Institute. Physicians using the calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) monoclonal antibodies "can dramatically improve the quality of their migraine patients just by learning how to use this group of medications," he continued.

Martin said many of his patients who couldn't tolerate or had inadequate repsponses to conventional migraine medications are now doing very well with CGRP agents.

"The old, conventional preventive therapies took 1-3 months to work. In some instances, these medications can work in a week or less — their onset of action is much quicker," Martin said.

Read the Medscape article.

Featured photo at top of a woman with a headache. Photo/FG Trade/iStock.