Migraine in patients with fibromyalgia and outcomes of greater occipital nerve blockage.

Objectives: The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of greater occipital nerve (GON) blockage in patients with migraine and fibromyalgia (FM) comorbidity.

Patients And Method: 20 patients who were diagnosed as FM according to 2010 American College of Rheumatology (ACR) diagnostic criteria and migraine according to International Classification of Headache Disorers II criteria and did not recieve any medication or GON block for both disorders were included for the study. GON blocks were repeated every week in the first month and repeated montly for the following 2 months. The frequency and duration of the migraine attacks, pain severity with visual analogue scale (VAS), quality of life (QoL) with revised fibromyalgia impact questionnaire (FIQR) and migraine disability assesment questionnaire (MIDAS) before,1 st month and 3rd months after treatment were recorded and compared.

Results: 95% of 20 patients were female (n = 19) and 5% was male (n = 1). The affected site was left in 60% of the patients (n = 12) and 40% was right (n = 8). There was significant improvement in terms of all evaluation parameters both at 1 st month and 3rd months after treatment compared to the baseline. Likely, all parameters were significantly improved at 3rd month compared to the 1 st month.

Conclusions: GON blockage reduces pain severity, headache frequency and duration and increases QoL in patients with migraine and FM comorbidity.