Relationship of Reduced Pain Intensity and Improved Quality-of-Life with Menstrual Migraine with Aspirin, Acetaminophen, and Caffeine Combination

TL;DR

This study shows that a combination of aspirin, acetaminophen, and caffeine reduces pain and improves quality of life for people with menstrual migraines.

Contribution

The study demonstrates the rapid and sustained effectiveness of AAC in treating menstrual migraine symptoms.

Findings

AAC provided significantly greater pain relief than placebo at 1 to 6 hours post-treatment.

Quality-of-life improvements were significantly higher in the AAC group compared to placebo.

The benefits of AAC were sustained for up to 6 hours after treatment.

Abstract

Objective: The objective of the current post hoc analysis is to evaluate whether the combination of acetaminophen, aspirin, and caffeine (AAC) is more effective than placebo in relieving the pain intensity for and improving the quality-of-life (QoL) of subjects with menstrual migraine (MM). Methods: This analysis evaluated the impact of AAC (n = 85) versus placebo (n = 100) in relieving the pain intensity for and improving the QoL of subjects with MM during baseline and at 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 h post treatment. Subjects reported their pain intensity using a 4-point scale and QoL using a 5-point scale. A lower score indicates reduced pain intensity and improved QoL. Results: A statistically significant difference between the AAC and placebo groups (p ≤ 0.001) was observed in pain relief after 1 h (40% vs. 14%), 2 h (56.5% vs. 24%), 3 h (63.5% vs. 31%), 4 h (65.9% vs. 34%), and 6 h (64.7% vs. 31%) post treatment. Similarly, a significantly higher proportion of subjects reported improved QoL at 1 h (48.2% vs. 28.0%; p ≤ 0.005), 2 h (61.2% vs. 40.0%; p ≤ 0.005), 3 h (68.2% vs. 44.0%; p ≤ 0.001), 4 h (67.9% vs. 39.0%; p ≤ 0.001), and 6 h (64.3% vs. 37.0%; p ≤ 0.001) post treatment. The mean pain intensity and QoL scores reduced, while the relative pain intensity and QoL (difference between the AAC and placebo groups) increased with time and was sustained for 6 h. Conclusions: The rapid onset and sustained effect of AAC make it a potential option for managing headaches and other symptoms, and to improve the QoL of subjects with MM.

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