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The Rebound Effect: How Headache Relief Medications Can Cause More Headaches

November 11, 2016

If the medication that once soothed your headaches now causes them, your body may be trying to tell you something.

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (aspirin, Motrin, Advil and others known as NSAIDs), combination analgesics (like Excederin, Tylenol and Aleve), opioids and triptans (like Sumatriptan) are among the headache medications that, taken  two or more days a week over long periods, can cause a rebound effect.

“Many of the people I see with chronic migraines have medication overuse, or rebound, headaches,”  Dr. Brian Grosberg, medical director of the Hartford HealthCare Headache Center, told U.S. News & World Report.

The cycle can look like this: As the pain-relief medication wears off, a withdrawal response causes you to take  more medication that leads to yet another headache and a desire to take even more medication. That continues until the headaches occur daily, a chronic condition with more severe pain.

How to  stop the cycle?

“Limit your use of acute pain medications to no more than two days per week if you need them for an extended period of time,” says Dr. Grosberg.

If you’re suffering from rebound headaches, reduce the use of the pain-relief medication gradually under your doctor’s supervision. Ask about daily preventive medications. They work, but it’ll take time.

“It may take weeks to months,” says Dr. Grosberg, “for these preventive medications to build up in your system enough to reduce the the frequency and intensity of headaches.”