Last Updated on March 16, 2024
Sumatriptan is a medication used to treat migraines and cluster headaches. It works by narrowing blood vessels in the head, reducing pain and other symptoms associated with these conditions. In the UK, sumatriptan is only available on prescription from a doctor or pharmacist. However, some countries, including the United States, have approved sumatriptan for over-the-counter use.
Although it is a prescription drug in the UK, there is a growing demand for sumatriptan to be available without a prescription. Many people who suffer from migraines and cluster headaches find it difficult to obtain a prescription for the drug due to long waiting times at doctors’ surgeries or a history of adverse reactions to other medications. As a result, they turn to buying sumatriptan online or from other countries where it is available without a prescription. However, this can be risky as the medication may not be genuine or safe to use.
It’s important to note that while sumatriptan is not available without a prescription in the UK, there are other treatments that can help with migraines and cluster headaches. Over-the-counter painkillers such as aspirin, ibuprofen and paracetamol are often used.
What is sumatriptan?
Sumatriptan belongs to the group of triptans used to treat acute migraine and cluster headaches. Sumatriptan was the first triptan to be approved on the German pharmaceutical market. It can be taken as a tablet, suppository or syringe. Read about the effects of sumatriptan, how it works, side effects and other important information.
How sumatriptan works?
A migraine is different from a normal headache in that it is usually a one-sided, severe, throbbing pain. The cause of migraines is not fully understood. At the moment, experts believe that there are several complementary factors involved in the development of migraines:
- During an acute migraine attack, the blood vessels in the brain have been shown to dilate, so that the affected parts of the brain are supplied with blood. There are receptors in the wall of the blood vessels, and the pain and dilation of the blood vessels are transmitted to the brain.
- In an acute migraine attack can be in the blood enhanced inflammatory messengers find such as CGRP (“calcitonin gene-related peptide”), substance P and neurokinin A. These provide additional vascular dilatation and irritation of the affected tissue.
- Experts suspect in migraine patients a hyperexcitability of certain parts of the brain. The same is the seizure of the case, to which the migraine has few parallels.
- Genetic factors also can affect the severity of the disease.
Triptans such as sumatriptan travel through the blood to the brain and activate specific docking sites (receptors) on the surface of nerve cells and blood vessels in the brain for the neurotransmitter serotonin (5-HT 1receptor). This means that the blood vessels that constrict during an attack also constrict, and less inflammatory messengers are released from nerve cells.
Sumatriptan also works for cluster headaches. Cluster headaches are unilateral, very severe attacks of pain that occur mainly in the temporal and occipital regions.
Pharmacokinetics and metabolism of sumatriptan
Sumatriptan is absorbed quickly by the mouth, but only small amounts (about ten to twenty percent) pass through the intestinal wall into the bloodstream. It crosses the blood-brain barrier to reach its site of action. Sumatriptan is then largely converted in the liver into less effective breakdown products and excreted via the kidneys. About two hours after a dose is taken, half of the original amount of the drug has left the body.
When is sumatriptan used?
Sumatriptan is indicated for the treatment of acute migraine headache with or without aura and cluster headache.
How sumatriptan is used?
The migraine medicine sumatriptan is taken at the start of or during an acute migraine attack, usually as a tablet. The usual dose is 50 to 100 milligrams of sumatriptan, but higher doses do not increase the effect. If the pain starts within a few hours of taking the first tablet, a second tablet can be taken within a day (but not more than two hours after the first). If the first tablet does not work, no more should be taken, but some other painkillers (aspirin,) should be avoided.
As sumatriptan is poorly absorbed in the gut, there are other forms on the market that work more quickly:
- Sumatriptan nasal spray is sprayed once into one nostril.
- Sumatriptan suppositories are inserted into the rectum.
- Sumatriptan injection is injected under the skin.
All of these forms are lower doses than tablets to improve absorption. They are particularly suitable for patients who suffer from migraines with nausea and vomiting and who therefore have difficulty taking tablets.
What are the side effects of sumatriptan?
Sumatriptan is used in ten to one hundred patients for side effects such as shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting and muscle pain.
What should I watch for while taking sumatriptan?
Combining sumatriptan with other drugs used to treat migraine (such as other triptans or ergotamine) may increase the risk of adverse effects such as spasm of the coronary arteries. This combination should therefore be avoided.
Antidepressants of the MAOI type (monoamine oxidase inhibitors such as tranylcypromine, moclobemide) may slow down the breakdown of sumatriptan, causing its blood levels to rise sharply. The same applies to other substances that affect the serotonin level, such as other antidepressants (SSRIs – selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, tricyclic antidepressants, 5-hydroxytryptophan), some sleeping pills (tryptophan), opioid painkillers (tramadol, fentanyl) and particularly addictive substances (amphetamines, cocaine, MDMA).
They should not be combined with the migraine medicine sumatriptan.
Use in pregnant women should be avoided due to limited study data, but is possible under medical supervision and strict risk-benefit assessment in the second and third trimesters.
Sumatriptan passes into breast milk, but not for about twelve hours after ingestion. If milk is produced during this time, it should be expressed and discarded.
As effectiveness in children and adolescents has not been established, they should not use sumatriptan for migraine treatment.
In principle, there is nothing to stop older people from taking sumatriptan. However, in the absence of data, it is not recommended.
How to get sumatriptan?
Preparations containing the active ingredient sumatriptan are still available on prescription in any dosage and package size, but a release from prescription (for low doses and small package sizes) will be discussed. Newer triptans such as naratriptan and almotriptan are only available in pharmacies in small packs.
Since when sumatriptan is known?
After scientific studies in the 1960s showed that the vasoconstriction in the brain caused by various serotonin derivatives and analogues could improve migraine attacks, the pharmaceutical company Glaxo (now GlaxoSmithKline) began looking specifically for new active substances for this purpose in 1972. The new drug developed in the case, sumatriptan, was approved in the Netherlands and in 1992 in Germany and the United States 1991st Since 2006, when the patent protection expired, numerous generics with the drug sumatriptan came on the market.