Headache. 2009 Feb;49(2):286-91.
Intravenous lidocaine in the treatment of refractory headache: a retrospective case series.

Marmura M, Rosen N, Abbas M, Silberstein S.

Jefferson Headache Center-Department of Neurology, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

BACKGROUND: New treatments are needed to treat chronic daily headache (CDH) and chronic cluster headache (CCH). New treatments are needed to treat this population and intravenous (IV) lidocaine is a novel treatment for CDH. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to examine the use of IV lidocaine for refractory CDH patients in an inpatient setting. METHODS: This was an open-label, retrospective, uncontrolled study of IV lidocaine for 68 intractable headache patients in an inpatient setting. We reviewed the medical records of patients receiving IV lidocaine between February 6, 2003 and June 29, 2005. RESULTS: Pretreatment headache scores averaged 7.9 on an 11-point scale and posttreatment scores averaged 3.9 representing an average change of 4. Average length of treatment was 8.5 days. Lidocaine infusion was generally well tolerated with a low incidence of adverse events leading to discontinuation of treatment. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests benefit of lidocaine treatment and the need for further prospective analyses. The mechanism of lidocaine in treating headache is unknown.

PMID: 19222600 [PubMed]

Thank you Bob, that is very interesting !

Do you have access to the full article to see if there was any mention  whether the effect lasted after the treatment and how long did it last for?

If the relief stopped soon after discharge from the clinic/hospital then I wonder how it could be used long term.

Otherwise I guess it could be used as a temporary treatment to give people a break during those particularly rough times.

20+ years ago, a [quack] doctor tried this on me.  Although this was in the hospital, they did not do the cardiac monitoring they should have.  Lidocaine does effect the heart.  Oh, and no relief, but the protocols were most likely different.

Ray

Sorry, I can't get the whole article. If your hospital is say, 300 beds or more, they will have a medical library which probably gets this journal--it's an important one. I'd be surprised if they objected to you reading it there. (The hospitals I worked in were uniformly willing to share.)