Comparative study of greater occipital nerve block and conventional therapy in chronic migraine

Chronic migraine is disabling and medicines alone are often not enough so ultrasound guided greater occipital nerve block is used as an add-on therapy. We observed 100 patients where one group received prophylaxis with the block and the other received only prophylaxis with follow up of 90 days. The block group showed a bigger fall in migraine disability score (14.2 to 6.8 vs 14.3 to 9.2 p < 0.0001), lower VAS score (7.9 to 4.4 vs 7.1 to 6.0 p < 0.0001) and fewer headache episodes early and higher satisfaction (12.7 vs 12.3 p = 0.016). Ultrasound guided block was safe and simple and gave better pain relief with reduced medicine use and improved patient satisfaction.