Migraine sufferers can take a jab made from liquid aspirin to relieve their severe headache. The news comes from the research conducted by the researchers from The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London and the University of California. It was published in the medical journal Neurology.

The previous studies have reported intravenous or IV aspirin to be effective for treating acute migraine. The present study wanted to examine if IV aspirin could also be effective against chronic daily headache, particularly in people who had severe headaches because of the overuse of headache-relief medicines.

The patients of migraine often withdraw from medications such as paracetamol, opioids or triptans used to treat migraine. The same medicines cannot be used to treat the withdrawal headache in people with migraine.

The research involved identification of all people who had received IV aspirin for severe headache between the September 2001 and May 2006. They used patient diaries and other medical records to assess the characteristics of these people and the effect of IV aspirin on their pain.

The final sample consisted of 168 people who had received IV aspirin. The level of pain was assessed on scale of 0 to 10 with 0 representing no pain and 10 higher level of pain. It was measured three hours before giving a dose of aspirin or chlorpromazine or aspirin. The participants were given 1g doses of aspirin intravenously for five times in a day.

Around 25% of the people reported a decline in pain to a drop of three and about 40% of the people had modest fall in pain to about two points. The final conclusion from the research was that IV is a safe and effective treatment for managing severe headaches in people admitted to hospital.

The study gives an indication that the treatment can be safe in people with severe daily headache but there are a number of points to be considered about this study. The study used patient diaries that were not designed to assess the effects of IV aspirin. And about half the patients did not maintain a diary so again there might have some differences in the experiences of such people.

The most important point is this study concentrated mainly on the headache caused due to overuse of pain medication and therefore cannot be generalized to a general population who experience headache and migraine. The study needs to be conducted on a larger population to test the effectiveness of IV aspirin before it can actually be used in treatments.

Migraine affects a large number of people and the pain is really severe. The intravenous aspirin can be very effective in treating severe headache as a result of overuse of medication. It will also be of fewer burdens on a patient’s pocket in terms of price.