– It is a great relief to know that. It makes us feel more believed in and we get recognition for the problems we struggle with on a daily basis, says Marie Espeskog. The student has struggled with chronic migraines all his life. An illness that has greatly affected her life. – Some days I only had a headache, while other days I was bedridden, vomiting and had to lie in a dark room. You miss social things, you miss school and this was experienced as very, very tough, she says. This is the case Anti-CGRP or CGRP inhibitors (calcitonin gene-related peptide receptor antagonists) are drugs that have been specially developed to prevent migraines. Studies show that only one in six can count on getting a good effect from the preparations. The doctor cannot write a prescription, but must send an application for each individual patient. About 10,000 migraine patients now receive CGRP inhibitors. The medicine is given on a blue prescription, which means that the costs are either fully or partially covered by national insurance. The treatment cost the public NOK 400 million in 2021, according to the Norwegian Medicines Agency. Norwegian health authorities will now pause treatment for patients for up to three months at a time, to find out who needs it most. Sources: The Norwegian Medicines Agency, Helfo, Ministry of Health Forced pause in medication It therefore came as a shock to her, and many others, when the health authorities proposed a pause in the treatment many receive for migraines. Of the 100,000 who suffer from chronic migraine in Norway, 10,000 of them receive a medicine with CGRP inhibitors on a blue prescription. This is an expensive medicine that the public sector spent NOK 733 million on from December 2019 to December 2021. It was those who take this type of medicine that the health authorities wanted to have a treatment break of three months, the first after eighteen months, then every three years , to check whether the patients met the requirements for the medicines. – We know that migraine is a disease that, for many, goes away on its own. If you are on medication constantly, you will not find out if it has gone away. So it makes sense to take a treatment break now and then, says State Secretary Ole Henrik Krat Bjørkholt (Ap). Demands that the government turn But now a majority in the health and care committee in the Storting has asked the ministry to change the regulations. – We cannot blame migraine patients for having to live with the insecurity, the uncertainty and perhaps the pain caused by having to take a break from the medication. We believe that this violates the patients’ basic rights, says the leader of the health committee, Tone Wilhelmsen Trøen (H) The majority believes that it is unreasonable that a collective decision is made about the treatment of each individual patient. Therefore, the Labor Party and the Center Party must turn around when the majority in the Storting asks that the rules be changed back. The association Headache Norway is very happy about that. – Treatment break is something that our patients and members ask for themselves. They want to try it themselves. But the break must be at a point in life where it fits. It cannot be like it has been with the new rules, says general secretary Laila Mathisen. Got her life back For Marie Espeskog, the CGRP medication has given her a new life. Before she started on it, she had migraines between 15 and 25 days a month. Now she is down for five days a month, some months even fewer. – It is a completely new life for me. I can do so much more!, she says. The injection she puts in her stomach once a month means that she doesn’t have to push herself when her head hurts and friends ask if she wants to be part of things. – Now I can study full-time, now I can work on the side. I can have a social life that I had previously too, but which I pushed through, she concludes.
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The Storting overrules the government on the use of CGRP medicine for migraine patients – news Trøndelag
