Last year, the International Headache Society published a study that found "overuse" of over the counter medicines as a major contributing factor to frequent migraine headache attacks. "Overuse has less to do with how many pills you take to relieve a single headache than with how often you take them," explains Dr. Robert Kunkel, a headache specialist at the Cleveland Clinic Headache Center. "If you get more than two headaches a week and take pain pills for them, you're at risk." Studies showed that pain relievers with caffeine, like Excedrin, were some of the worst culprits for exacerbating proclivity to migraines.

For many years, folks suffering from migraines had to deal with the pain, nausea and interruption to their daily lives because no effective treatment was available. Over the counter medications just did not do anything for them. In the United States alone, more than 28 million suffer from migraines — which translates to a high amount of time lost for work, social activities and daily routines. After some time spent on research and testing, a class of drugs known as triptans were approved that offered effective migraine headache relief.