Medical treatment for occipital neuralgia: A comparison between four medications

Introduction: Treatment of Occipital Neuralgia (ON) is challenging and there is no consensus about how to treat it. Current drug therapy is based on different medications from first-line pain-killers up to opioid analgesics but more importantly on antiepileptic medications and classically CARBAMAZEPINE (CA). Methods: In this paper, we present our experience with the medical treatment of ON by comparison of the four most frequently used medications in 133 patients. Results: Analysis of data from our study showed that PREGABALINE (PR) was on average the most effective drug with 60% satisfactory results. AMITRIPTYLINE (AM) with 53.30% ranked second. AM had the highest (14.29%) and GABAPENTINE (GA) had the lowest (8.82%) rates of side effects. Discussion: In this study, we evaluated and compared the efficacy of four medications in the treatment of occipital neuralgia. In first and second-line treatment, the efficacy of PR appears to be higher than CA.