Vascular injuries in ergotamine abuse: a case report.

The case reported here concerns a 40-year-old woman who has suffered from severe migraine without aura since she was 23. The patient has been taking 1-3 suppositories of Virdex (2 mg of ergotamine tartrate, 250 mg of aminophenazone, caffeine) every day for the past three years. In addition to headache, the onset of short, sporadic cramps in the limbs together with paresthesia, hyposthenia, hypothermia and skin pallor with a slight increase in diastolic pressure, made hospital treatment necessary.

[Raynaud's phenomenon and calcium blocking agents. A preliminary open study with flunarizine].

Raynaud's phenomenon (Raynaud's disease), an accessual vascular acrosyndrome characterised by an important constriction of distal arterioles, has still no specific pharmacological therapy. In the last years, the use of calcium-entry-blockers (nifedipine, diltiazem, verapamil, nicardipine), drugs able to control the contractility of the vessels, showed some positive results. Considering this data, we appraised the efficacy of flunarizine, another calcium-entry-blocker, in a preliminary study of 28 patients (23 females, 5 males, aged between 15 and 48 years) suffering from Raynaud's disease.

Flunarizine in migraine prophylaxis: efficacy and tolerability of 5 mg and 10 mg dose levels.

The use of flunarizine, a drug which has proven its efficacy in migraine, is often associated with important side effects. The aim of this paper has been to check their incidence at different dose levels (5 mg vs 10 mg). Our data confirm the occurrence of important side effects (in particular weight gain); on the other hand, they emphasize the dose-dependency of the side effects.