If you've been following me for the last couple of years, you'll know that I've been struggling with chronic migraines since I was a teenager and in the last couple of years, these have gotten significantly worse where I've been having 3-4 migraines a week despite treatment and lifestyle changes so when the lovely folks at Pharmacy2U kindly sent across the Nerivio device to try out & share it with you all.
Nevirio Device
The Nerivio device is an FDA cleared remote electrical neuromodulation (REN) device designed as a safe and effective relief for migraine symptoms. The device is worn on your upper arm and is designed to use electrical pulses to activate the body's natural pain regulation system and block nerve signals for pain to provide relief during a migraine. You get 18 treatments lasting 45 minutes each and it can either be either for acute treatment for as often as needed when migraines come on or every other day as a preventative treatment.
The technology behind the Nerivio is that the electrical impulses stimulate nerves and pain fibres in your upper arm which then sends messages to the pain regulation centre in the brainstem which then activates your body's conditioned pain modulation (CPM) system which activates the descending pain inhibitory pathways which then travel to the trigeminal nerve complex where serotonin and norepinephrine are released and help to work to ease pain. It's safe to be used from age 12 and upwards and has been tested in multiple clinical trials including ones for episodic migraines, chronic migraines, migraines in adolescent and even for migraine prevention. It was interesting to see that the clinical trials showed that people were needing less prescription migraine medication, had less headache days in as early as 2 weeks since starting using the device and 2 out of 3 people found that they got relief within 2 hours of using the device.
When you start using the device, it connects to an app on your phone which allows you to start the treatment, choose the strength of the electrical impulses so you can customise it to you and it also allows you to track your migraine and headache days which is super helpful! It's really easy and straight forward to set up. You peel the Nerivio device off the pad and stick it to your upper arm and use the included band to help secure it to your arm, turn it on and then press start on the app to start your treatment. I won't lie when I first got the Nerivio device, I was worried about the band with me being a plus size person, I was worried that it wouldn't fit me as it didn't come with size options. However the band has different slots for small, medium, large and extra large so no matter your arm, you can fit it to you.
When you start the treatment, there is a small button at the bottom of the screen with a percentage to adjust the intensity and they recommend that you adjust this on every treatment and increase the intensity until the stimulation is no longer comfortable then decrease it by 1-2% to give you perfect intensity. I will say that if someone else was to touch your arm, they're unable to feel the intensity of the electrical pulses (yes I did try this when I first used it). The only interactions with this device are for people with uncontrolled epilepsy and active implantable devices like pacemakers and hearing aids. I do have hearing aids but usually when my migraines come on, I'm really sensitive to noise so I hate wearing my hearing aids during this time. So I always make sure I take them out during treatment and a little while afterwards but it is a shock risk using it if you have anything like hearing aids or pacemakers that can't be removed.
My Experience
I get 3-4 migraines a week so I've tried this Nerivio device a handful of times already. It was really easy and straight forward to set it up and it even comes with a handy guide to help if you get stuck on anything. In the last week, I've used it for acute treatment cause I won't lie, I keep forgetting to use it as a preventative measure for my chronic migraines mainly because I'm still so new to using it.
The first time I used it, it helped relax me enough that I actually fell asleep before the treatment had ended and when I woke up my migraine had gone so I was using it for acute treatment. The band is a really comfortable, flexible band making it really comfortable to wear and it doesn't dig in anywhere. During the first treatment, I stuck to the standard intensity that it starts at and found it really comfortable to wear but I must say that I found it most effective at 20% and have stuck to that intensity for the last couple of sessions and found it the most effective. I'm gonna start using it every other day from the beginning of this coming week as a preventative measure to see of the difference it makes.
Now with suffering from chronic migraines, I'm at the point when I'm willing to try anything. However it's £250 for 18 treatments then you can contact them for a refill but it's not listed the price of the refill so I'll have to get back to you guys on the price of that as it's certainly any investment price wise bur I really do noticed a difference in the severe head pain I get during the acute stage of my migraine and in general I found that the acute stage didn't last as long as it normally does so it really it starting to make a difference. Once I've used it for the next couple of weeks, I'll be sure to come back with a review of the Nerivio Device for you all.
How do you treat your migraines?
Speak to you next time!
*This blog post contains items are gifted for review. All opinions are honest and my own.
