Comparison of intravenous valprovate sodium & sulfate magnesium injections in pain relief of acute migraine attack

Migraine is a recurring headache that its severity varies from moderate to high. Preventive treatments are recommended to treat migraine headaches. Drugs used for preventive treatment include sodium valproate and magnesium sulfate.

In this study, 65 patients aged 18 to 50 years with a history of migraine with acute migraine attack were enrolled and divided into two groups. Prescribing and administering medicine was done by one person and evaluation of symptoms and visual analog scale (VAS) was performed by a second person without the knowledge of the prescribed medicine. Then, the effect of these drugs in terms of VAS reduction was evaluated half hour after injection and after 1 and 2 hours later and recorded in the checklist. Finally, the information was analyzed with SPSS.v11 statistical software.

The results of this study showed that the mean age of patients were 36.11 with a SD=10.97. About 60% of patients have a positive family history of migraine disease. Results revealed that 97.1% of patients have nausea and 49.3% of them have vomiting. Also, magnesium sulfate and sodium valproate groups were not significantly different at half an hour, one hour and two hours after injection and before injection.(p-value=0.999 & p-value=0.788 & p-value=0.783).

This study showed that there is no significant difference in the amount of pain reduction in acute migraine attacks between sodium valproate and magnesium sulfate groups. Therefore, the use of either of these two drugs does not differ in the improvement of pain in the patient