Focusing on You: A New Look at Migraine Treatment
New treatment options provide relief for migraine sufferers
In this Focusing on You segment, Dr. Teshamae Monteith, neurologist and chief of the headache division at the University of Miami Health System, discusses UHealth’s inpatient migraine service, which provides a combination of newly-FDA approved medications and standard IV therapies for the prevention and treatment of migraine.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Intro:
Focusing on you, innovations in modern medicine from your team of experts UHealth, the University of Miami Health System.
Narrator:
Cherise Irons hasn’t had a migraine in over four months, but she remembers the feeling with excruciating clarity.
Cherise Irons:
The sides of my head are starting to hurt. It’s affecting my sleep. My appetite is going. I’m starting to feel all this tingling in my fingers, it’s tingling in my toes, but I’m ignoring it, but I know it’s escalating.
Narrator:
After years of treatment failed to control her migraine symptoms, Cherise left her job and moved to South Florida where she sought treatment from UHealth migraine expert, Doctor Teshamae Monteith.
Dr. Monteith:
She came to me suffering with headache almost every day, and they’re continuously really disrupting her quality of life. She had tried a number of established treatments, and so what we decided to do, we thought it was the right time to hospitalize her.
Narrator:
Through UHealth’s inpatient migraine service, Cherise received a combination of new treatments along with standard IV therapies.
Dr. Monteith:
Inpatient headache programs are really important for patients that are suffering from refractory migraine, as well as some other types of headache disorders. So, we’re able to offer treatments that actually have been around for quite a long time, but are unfortunately underutilized.
Narrator:
By day three of her hospital stay, Cherise was relieved of all migraine symptoms.
Cherise Irons:
No pain for me, really meant no head pain, and then also no pain in any form at all. So, no nerve pain, no kind of tingling, no nothing.
Narrator:
Cherise continues her treatment at home with a new therapy, monthly injections, and she’s able to track her progress using an app right on her phone.
Pam Giganti:
Spending time in a coffee shop like this one is something Cherise could never do when her migraines were at their worst, but now it’s one of her favorite places.
Cherise Irons:
There’s no ceiling, there’s no limit on my life anymore. I get to do what I want, be where I want.
Dr. Monteith:
It’s more than just treating the migraine, it’s really just treating the entire patient, and that’s what we go to medical school for.
Tags: Dr. Teshamae Monteith, headache, migraines, neurology
