Overuse of new 5-Ht agonists (zolmitriptan and naratriptan) in migraine patients: clinical features

Abstract Inappropriate use of headache medication may contribute to the development to chronic daily headache. Potentially, each component contained in analgesics or drugs used for the treatment of migraine attacks probably could induce chronic daily headache. Triptans can also lead to drug-induced headache. Triptan-induced headache is not defined by the International Headache Society (IHS) classification which was published before sumatriptan was marketed in Europe and the United States. However, the occurrence of overuse in migraine patients treated by sumatriptan has been clearly demonstrated by pharmacoepidemiological studies (see review in ref. 1).