Books & Products, Chronic Migraine, Treatment

Cefaly External Neurostimulation Device for Preventing & Aborting Migraine Attacks

Cefaly, an electrical nerve stimulation device that is worn like a headband across the forehead and stimulates the nerves through the skin, is my latest experiment in preventing and aborting migraines. There’s a ton of information to share, so I’m breaking it up into several posts, starting with the basics. If you can’t wait to read about the study, here’s Medscape’s writeup: Neurostimulation Effective in Migraine Prevention. (You can get a login from Bugmenot.)

First off, what the heck is Cefaly? It is basically a TENS unit with an electrode shaped to cover the peripheral branches of the trigeminal nerves in the forehead. Instead of being able to adjust the settings freely as you do on a TENS unit, Cefaly is pre-programmed with three therapeutic settings, one for aborting migraine attacks, one for preventing them, and one for relaxation.

According to Cefaly’s website,

Cefaly treats migraine pain with neurostimulation. A stimulus that limits pain signals from the nerve centre by working on the trigeminal nerve where migraine headaches start. The patented Cefaly treatment changes the trigger threshold of migraine headaches. As the pain threshold becomes harder to reach, migraine headaches are less frequent, less painful, and simply disappear. Cefaly offers patients suffering from migraine pain and headaches an efficient electrotherapeutical system delivered via an extremely comfortable, ergonomic and simple-to-use medical device.

An easy-to-follow marketing video:

Harder to follow without knowledge of scientific terms, this video provides a high-level explanation of the science behind the device:

While the marketing materials focus on migraine (and that’s what my experience represents), the manual recommends its use for tension-type headache, cluster headache, and trigeminal neuralgia. It also claims to reduce stress, promote relaxation, and ease the symptoms of sinusitis, though it does not treat the underlying sinus infection.

Cefaly has not been approved for sale in the US and is is not available here. It is available in Canada, Australia, and Europe. I ordered mine from Costco Canada for $230 USD and had it shipped to a friend in Canada who sent it on to me, though I’m not sure this is strictly legal. My headache specialist said his US patients have ordered it directly from Roxon.ca for $299 USD and Oximetry.ca for $340 USD. Although not inexpensive, $230 is reasonable considering the cost of various preventive and abortive meds.

Replacement electrodes come out to $10 each when shipping is factored in. The life of electrodes is listed at 10 uses in the manual, though reviewers on Costco.ca list various strategies for extending their usefulness. I wash my hands and forehead well before applying the electrode and store it in a Ziploc bag with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol next to it. At 11 uses, my original electrode still seems to be working fine. Even if it costs $1 in electrodes each time I use it, that’s still a savings over what I pay for triptans.

There’s enough hype about Cefaly on the internet that I wouldn’t have even tried it had by headache specialist not recommended it. It just seems too good to be true. At the time I saw my headache specialist in May, he had suggested it to 20 of his patients with intractable chronic migraine and half reported at least some relief from it. One had just written him a letter saying the results were close to miraculous for her. Because I trust my headache specialist immensely, I went for it.

Writing this post, I discovered that headache specialist Alexander Mauskop questions whether Cefaly provides advantages over readily available $50 TENS units. While I could have done with saving some money, I derive comfort from the pre-set programs and am not sure if I could have found the right therapeutic settings on my own. If you already have a TENS unit, it might be worth trying it out on your forehead!

I’m still sorting out the kinks and it is too early to establish any preventive effect, but the device has definitely aborted migraine attacks for me. In Monday’s post, I’ll detail my first week with it.