Prophylaxis for chronic daily headache and chronic migraine with neuronal stabilizing agents.

Approaches to acute and prophylactic migraine and headache treatment are evolving as our understanding of some of the underlying pathophysiology improves. This article focuses on the emerging use of medications originally introduced for the treatment of seizures (anticonvulsants) as primary therapy for eradicating or reducing migraine and chronic daily headaches. A more accurate term for their pharmacologic mechanisms, if they are used to treat headaches and pain disorders, is neuromodulating or neuronal stabilizing agents. This term refers to their many cellular actions to reduce pain transmission supraspinally, in the spinal cord, and in the brainstem.