The Role of Osteopathic Manipulation in the the Management of Post-traumatic Migraine

This is a 30-week prospective, randomized delayed treatment control group design in which 20 participants from the community will be randomized 1:1 into (a) an immediate treatment group that will receive 12 weeks of osteopathic manipulation (OMT) treatment plus standard of care right away or (b) delayed treatment group that will receive 12 weeks of OMT plus standard of care after a 6-week waiting period. The delayed treatment group initially serves as a control condition but then receives the experimental treatment. The investigators selected this control condition to improve our statistical power in this small pilot study. As noted, all participants will continue to receive standard of care throughout the study as a washout is not feasible with osteopathic manipulation and removing standard of care could exacerbate the participant's symptoms. Participants in both arms will be followed for another 12 weeks after the 12 weeks of OMT, resulting in 24 weeks of study participation for the immediate treatment group and 30 weeks of study participation for the delayed treatment group, with participants in both arms answering a series of questionnaires to evaluate migraine frequency and impact, treatment efficacy, side effects, adherence t standard of care and depressive symptoms every 6 weeks throughout their study participation. Participant encounters will consist of screening, psychometric and functional scale administration at every 6 weeks for a total of 24-30 weeks, as well as 12 weeks of OMT treatments for participants in both study arms. Study participants will likely come from UCSD internal referrals.

Inclusion criteria

• History of TBI, concussion, post-concussive syndrome
• Headache frequency >/equal 4 per month
• Post-traumatic headache, migraine type
• MIDAS Grade I-IV
• Headaches continue to occur 3 months to 1 year after the injury
• No history of uncontrolled migraine prior to head injury

Exclusion criteria

• Headache medication change (Tricyclic antidepressant, antiepileptic medication, propranolol, verapamil, duloxetine, butterbur, Botox) within 30 days
• Non-pharmacologic headache management change (reduction in caffeine intake, reduction in alcohol intake, sleep hygiene, exercise) within 30 days
• Less than 3 months from injury
• History of uncontrolled migraine prior to TBI
• Currently taking oral anti-coagulants