Hoofdpijn door overgebruik van pijnmedicatie

• Medication-overuse headache is a highly prevalent disorder with a major impact on the quality of life.
• Medication-overuse headache is defined as headache on ≥ 15 days per month with overuse of acute headache medication for ≥ 3 months. We talk about overuse in case of intake of simple analgesics on ≥ 15 days per month or triptans or combinations of analgesics on ≥ 10 days per month.
• The underlying type of headache is usually migraine or tension-type headache.
• One of the possible underlying mechanisms of medication-overuse headache is changed sensitivity as a consequence of central sensitisation.
• The initial treatment is detoxification of the headache medication. The preferred detoxification method is outpatient, abrupt withdrawal of all acute-headache medication and caffeine-containing products. Essential for successful detoxification is education about the reasons for detoxification, the expected course and the subsequent treatment.

Conflict of interest and financial support: none declared.