CGRP inhibitors have transformed migraine care in the past few years. Let’s break it down:

• CGRP stands for calcitonin gene-related peptide. This is a neurotransmitter that is involved in causing migraine attacks. If you give CGRP to a person who is prone to migraine attacks, they will likely get a migraine. And if you block (or inhibit) CGRP, the migraine goes away.

• CGRP inhibitors are the first class of medicines that have been developed to prevent migraine, so this is a big deal! We prescribe other meds to prevent migraine, but these meds were all developed to treat something else (blood pressure, seizures, depression, etc).

• CGRP inhibitors have very few side effects and are safe for most people.

• This class of drugs is available as a once a month injection that you do at home (similar to an epi pen) and also as a pill that you take every day or every other day. Some of the meds in this class are also used as rescue meds (to treat a migraine once it starts).

• Currently this class of meds is FDA-approved for ages 18 years and older. If you are an adult and you have frequent migraine attacks and haven’t been on a CGRP inhibitor, talk with your doctor.

• If you are an adult and your doctor prescribes one of these medications, you can likely get a savings card on the medication’s website. These savings cards typically make it so that you don’t pay more than $10 or so at the pharmacy for the medication.

• Headache specialists like myself often use these medications “off-label” to treat our teenage patients who have not had good migraine control on other preventive medications. These drugs are currently being studied and will hopefully get FDA-approval in the near future. In the meantime, publications in journals like “Headache” have shown that these medicines have been used safely and effectively in older teenagers.

• If a teen that you care about has frequent migraine attacks, see a headache specialist and ask whether CGRP inhibitors might be a good choice.