TMS and migraine

[eub]

TMS for aborting migraine?

A team of American scientists, based at Ohio State University Medical Centre, will present findings from their research today at the annual meeting of the American Headache Society in Los Angeles. In one study carried out by the group, more than two thirds of patients treated with the Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation device reported having either no pain or only mild pain two hours after treatment. Less than half of the placebo group reported similar pain levels.

And, uh,

The majority of the group with the device said that they could continue to work with only mild irritation after two hours. Only half of the control group said the same.

Noted without comment: http://open-rtms.sourceforge.net/

Comments

[hattifattener]

I'm glad, or possibly slightly horrified, that I'm not the only person who's wondered about cobbling together their own TMS thingy. The non-invasive nature of TMS makes it seem a lot less dangerous than other forms of auto-tinkering, but is that deceptive?

Whatever. I've got some magnet wire lying around, maybe I should get started building my SUPER GENIUS BRAIN AMPLIFICATION HELMET.

[bhudson.livejournal.com]

I loved the "a majority" / "only half" wording.

I'm going to hope that this is a case of a journalist getting bored with numbers.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

This is the best data source I could find on this, and I haven't found anything published (a year later?).

http://www.library.nhs.uk/rss/newsAndRssArticle.aspx?uri=http://www.library.nhs.uk/resources/?id=143628

Honestly, if half the people were fine two hours later w/o intervention, it seems like their headaches couldn't have been all that bad ('aura' can be misleading, like, how to define it etc).

I am wary of head-zapping but this is likely more gut-level/(sub)cultural (I'd rather have pills and needles?) than really based in a careful research perspective.