Abstract

We studied the response of 31 migraine sufferers (20 women, 11 men) to intravenous tyramine (the tyraminedose)pressor response test). Patients were treated either with pacebo tablets or indoramin, and alpha-adrenergic blocking agent, in a double-blind crrossover trial. We found that patients with migraine required significantly less tyramine to increase their cystolic blod pressure by 30 mm Hg when compared with matched controls. Indoramin significantly increased the amount of tyramine needed to raise the systolic blood pressure among migraine suffers and reduced the incidence of posttyramine migraine for m 46% while patients were on placebo tablets to 8% when they were receiveing indoramin. There was no association between tyramine sensitivity and a history of premenstrual or dietary migraine, nor was there a significant difference in the indierenence in the incidence of post-tyramine migrain between men women. We conclude that the intravenous tyramine test may be valuable in assessing migraine suffers who will respond to an alpha-advenergic blocking agent such as indoramin.