No. Migraine is not curable, because it is an inherited difference in how the brain processes sensory input rather than an injury to be repaired. The realistic goal, and one most people can reach, is fewer attacks, shorter attacks and attacks that respond reliably to treatment. For many, migraine also quietens substantially in later life.
No. Migraine is not curable, because it is an inherited difference in how the brain processes sensory input rather than an injury to be repaired. The realistic goal, and one most people can reach, is fewer attacks, shorter attacks and attacks that respond reliably to treatment. For many, migraine also quietens substantially in later life.
Migraine runs in families and reflects how a nervous system responds to change: sleep, hormones, stress, hunger, weather, light. Treatment works with that trait rather than eliminating it. This framing is more useful than it sounds, because it explains why the search for one thing to fix, one food to remove, one procedure to have, so often ends in disappointment, and why a plan with two parts works better.
Acute treatment stops an attack that has started and works best taken early: NSAIDs, triptans, and the newer gepants and ditans for people who cannot take triptans. Preventive treatment reduces how often attacks happen and is worth considering at around four or more migraine days a month, or when attacks are disabling despite good acute treatment. Preventives need eight to twelve weeks before judging. Most people arrive at a neurologist with only the first half of that plan in place, having escalated acute medication for years.
Medication-overuse headache, from frequent use of acute treatment including over-the-counter combination tablets and anything containing caffeine, codeine or butalbital. It converts episodic migraine into something close to daily headache and blunts every preventive. Untreated sleep apnoea, depression and anxiety, and, in this climate, dehydration and heat exposure all do similar work. These are the things a visit should look for before another prescription is added.
Frequency often shifts with hormones, worsening around menstruation, changing in pregnancy, and fluctuating through the perimenopausal years before settling for many people afterwards. A substantial number of people find migraine becomes much less frequent in their sixties and beyond. Aura can appear or change over time, and new aura in an older adult should be assessed rather than assumed. That long arc is why the honest answer is improvement rather than cure.
Clinical Neurology Specialists has been physician-owned since 1998, when Leo Germin, M.D., FAANEM founded it. Five board-certified neurologists and four advanced practice providers see patients at the Las Vegas and Henderson offices, each with its own AANEM-accredited electrodiagnostic laboratory.
Clinical Neurology Specialists is an adult outpatient neurology practice for patients 18 and older. The practice performs no surgery and operates no imaging suite, infusion suite or interventional pain programme, and provides no emergency or inpatient care.
Physician-reviewed. Reviewed by the physicians of Clinical Neurology Specialists — board-certified neurologists, AANEM-accredited electrodiagnostic laboratories, physician-owned since 1998. Reviewed 1 August 2026. This article is general education for adults 18 and older and is not a substitute for a consultation.
Sources and further reading: MedlinePlus: migraine; National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; MedlinePlus: headache.
Adults 18 and older, at the Las Vegas and Henderson offices. Call 702-804-1212 or request an appointment online.