Guideline Summary for Patients and Their Families

This acute migraine treatment guideline is summarized here to provide information for patients with migraine and their families. Acute migraine medications are used to treat individual migraine attacks at the time of the attack. Most patients with migraine will use an acute medication, but patients with migraine, especially if they have frequent attacks, should also consider whether they could change lifestyle factors which might be making their headache more frequent (skipping meals, not enough sleep, etc), or whether they need a migraine preventive medication. Preventive (or prophylactic) medications are quite different from acute medications. Preventive medications are taken daily to reduce the frequency (number) of migraine attacks, while acute medications are used to reduce or stop the pain of a migraine attack once it has started. It is important that acute medications not be taken too often.