The “American Migraine Study II” found that nearly 28 million Americans are currently living with migraine. That’s a lot of freakin’ people in these here United States that get pounders. Combine that with the untold millions that don’t actually have migraine, but do have severe tension headaches and think they have migraines, along with those that confuse run-of-the-mill headaches with migraines, and you are talking about one tremendous market. I guess that’s why I’m not really surprised to see a lot of products out there that are emblazoned with the “migraine” moniker these days.
What strikes me about some of these products is that they are simply re-branding of existing products. Excedrin, for example, has always irritated me (though just a little bit) in this regard. Here is a product that has always been useful for migraine because of the combination of pain relievers plus the addition of caffeine (which helps act as a vasoconstrictor). Now, Excedrin has both an “Extra Strength” and a “Migraine” branded version of their product, but if you look at the active ingredients, they are identical.
The reason this irritates me is when the product was first released they didn’t give any inkling to the fact that this was just a re-branding. The commercials tried to make like it was a brand new product formulated just for migraine sufferers. I will, however, give them big giant kudos, however, because both products do retail for the same amount. At least they aren’t gigging the migraineurs for extra spare change.
Advil (which is my OTC of choice) is a slightly different story. They don’t have anything specific to offer in the migraine arena. Ibuprofen is pretty good at treating headache pain, but doesn’t have anything specific along the lines of vasoconstrictors, so to re-brand Advil (in my opinion) as Advil Migraine without changing the formulation is a bit of a stretch.
Now, on a completely different note, there are some other products out there that are riding the migraine wave as well. HeadOn is one of these products that have been making the rounds lately. With the tag line “HeadOn: apply directly to the forehead,” repeated about a billion times during the commercial, the commercial itself is almost guaranteed to give you a headache!
According to information on its web page, HeadOn falls into the category of “homeopathic” medicine. One of the key principles of homeopathic medicine is the concept of the “minimum dose” and the super dilution of active ingredients. This means that you add a small amount of an ingredient to water, then keep diluting it with water over and over again. In homeopathic theory, somehow the water gets charged with the essence of the ingredient. What this means in reality is the chance of actually getting any of the actual ingredient in your sample of the dose is exceedingly small. It’s kind of like mixing a tiny spoonful of Kool-Aid into a swimming pool and hoping the cup you get tastes like cherry.
What strikes me about some of these products is that they are simply re-branding of existing products. Excedrin, for example, has always irritated me (though just a little bit) in this regard. Here is a product that has always been useful for migraine because of the combination of pain relievers plus the addition of caffeine (which helps act as a vasoconstrictor). Now, Excedrin has both an “Extra Strength” and a “Migraine” branded version of their product, but if you look at the active ingredients, they are identical.
The reason this irritates me is when the product was first released they didn’t give any inkling to the fact that this was just a re-branding. The commercials tried to make like it was a brand new product formulated just for migraine sufferers. I will, however, give them big giant kudos, however, because both products do retail for the same amount. At least they aren’t gigging the migraineurs for extra spare change.
Advil (which is my OTC of choice) is a slightly different story. They don’t have anything specific to offer in the migraine arena. Ibuprofen is pretty good at treating headache pain, but doesn’t have anything specific along the lines of vasoconstrictors, so to re-brand Advil (in my opinion) as Advil Migraine without changing the formulation is a bit of a stretch.
Now, on a completely different note, there are some other products out there that are riding the migraine wave as well. HeadOn is one of these products that have been making the rounds lately. With the tag line “HeadOn: apply directly to the forehead,” repeated about a billion times during the commercial, the commercial itself is almost guaranteed to give you a headache!
According to information on its web page, HeadOn falls into the category of “homeopathic” medicine. One of the key principles of homeopathic medicine is the concept of the “minimum dose” and the super dilution of active ingredients. This means that you add a small amount of an ingredient to water, then keep diluting it with water over and over again. In homeopathic theory, somehow the water gets charged with the essence of the ingredient. What this means in reality is the chance of actually getting any of the actual ingredient in your sample of the dose is exceedingly small. It’s kind of like mixing a tiny spoonful of Kool-Aid into a swimming pool and hoping the cup you get tastes like cherry.
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