If you have frequent severe headaches that have not responded to diet and other non-medication treatments, be sure to talk with your doctor about whether you would benefit from taking a migraine prevention medication.

Preventive Medications

Many drugs are good at preventing migraines, and no single one works best for everybody. So it may take time to find the right one for you. Your physician probably won't suggest preventive treatment unless you have several attacks a month. Don't try to combine any weight loss drugs with migraine medicine.

To begin, you may use pain relievers that you can buy without a prescription, such as acetaminophen (for example, Tylenol) and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as aspirin, ibuprofen, or naproxen sodium. All of these reduce migraine symptoms. Some doctors recommend that you first try an NSAID to see whether it reduces pain before trying other drugs, which may have more side effects.

Some medications given for migraine headaches are not formally approved for headache prevention but are widely used for this purpose. You and your doctor will try to find medications where even the side effects actually help you. For example, if sleeping is a problem, you might take a medicine that can cause sleepiness as a side effect. Sometimes, very small doses of several different medications are used together to help prevent headaches.

Anti-nausea drugs are sometimes prescribed along with abortive or preventive drugs to relieve symptoms of nausea and vomiting.