A study has found that a medical wearable can be as effective in managing chronic migraine as standard prescribed medications. The study, published in the Journal of Pain Management, found that Israeli company Theranica’s medical wearable Nerivio providing digitally-connected neuromodulation is an effective non-pharmacological alternative for chronic migraine.

The Nerivio therapeutic wearable provides Remote Electrical Neuromodulation (REN) to migraine sufferers. REN is designed to provide pain relief and pain freedom.

Standard medications for chronic migraine are circumscribed by safety concerns over their toxicity. Sufferers of chronic migraine can suffer from four to six migraines a week. But current medical advice is that standard anti-migraine pain relief treatments should not be used more than two days a week.

Worn on the upper arm at the onset of a migraine attack, Nerivio uses REN technology to alleviate migraine headache and associated symptoms by triggering an endogenous analgesic mechanism, known as conditioned pain modulation (CPM). The device is controlled via a smartphone app, allowing patients to set the intensity of their treatment as well as maintain a built-in migraine diary that can easily be shared with physicians for improved migraine tracking and management.

Prospective data from 78 adult chronic migraine patients in the US demonstrated effectiveness of REN across four parameters in comparison to standard-care medications. The analysed parameters included single-treatment pain relief and pain-freedom post 2 hours, as well as consistent pain relief and pain freedom across multiple treatments. In 62.8% (49/78) of the patients, REN led to significant single-treatment pain relief two hours post treatment, as opposed to only 48.7% (38/78) with medication usage (p=0.056 McNemar Test). 64.1% of the patients achieved consistent pain relief with REN, compared to 57.7% when using standard-care medications. Single treatment pain relief was achieved in 23.1% of migraine sufferers when using REN, in comparison to 19.2% with medication usage. Both REN and medication achieved 14.1% consistency of pain freedom across multiple treatments.

“Chronic migraine is an especially disabling condition, diagnosed when a migraine patient experiences at least 15 migraine-induced headache days per month,” said Brian Grosberg, MD, Director of the Hartford Healthcare Headache Program, who served as the primary investigator of the study. “The recent Consensus Statement of the American Headache Society recommends that, in order to avoid medication overuse, patients with migraine who need to use acute treatments on a regular basis should be instructed to limit medication use to an average of two headache days per week.”

Grosberg said, “Chronic migraine patients often have four, five or even six headache days per week. To treat them effectively and safely we must expand the first-line standard-care treatment options beyond prescribed medications. This research provides a strong comparison of REN to prescribed medications, mainly triptans, reinforcing the conclusion that REN provides a much-needed alternative to standard-care acute migraine treatment – without compromising effectiveness.”

“The results of this study further reinforce the very large body of evidence validating the efficacy of REN and Nerivio in various migraine patient populations,” said Ivan Gergel, MD, Managing Partner of New Rhein Healthcare Investors and a member of Theranica’s board of directors.  “This is very meaningful for health care and health insurance systems in the US who always seek ways to provide their members with access to safe, effective therapeutics for chronic conditions.”