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Pharmacy Links

THE LIMITED BENEFITS OF HEADACHE DRUGS

March 23, 2009

Based on a series of double-blind studies at leading university medical centers, approximately one-third of the beneficial effect of drugs comes not from any pharmaceutical action but from the body-mind’s own placebo effect. The placebo effect stems from the patient’s belief in a therapy rather than from the therapy itself.

Through the faith of believing in a medication or therapy, hope is aroused, and the mind begins to work independently of the treatment. It begins to harness the body’s own natural healing powers. Among the principal healing forces mobilized by the placebo effect are endorphins and enkephalins. Through a combination of nondrug therapies— positive thinking and rhythmic exercise, for example— endorphin is often released in such amounts that these hormones can completely block severe headache pain.

A dramatic example of the placebo effect is seen when headache sufferers who believe they have a brain tumor are told by a physician that they do not. At least half of these patients show immediate and significant improvement. Their joy and relief releases clouds of endorphin that effectively block every pain receptor in the brain. As they experience this exhilarating feeling of pain-free ease, their mood soars into a euphoric state of high-level wellness. For many, this transformation from helplessness to joy is proof that they can overcome their chronic headaches without drugs.

Those pain impulses that survive the spinal cord gate and the activity of enkephalins and endorphins in themidbrain are relayed on through the hypothalamus and pituitary glands to the cortex, where pain perception actually occurs.

Here again, the extent of pain actually felt is controlled by the balance between norepinephrine and serotonin. Depletion of either can lead to depression. It hardly seems surprising then that chronic headache and depression so frequently occur together.

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