What's the evidence for ibuprofen?

There is fairly good research to show that ibuprofen can help if you have a migraine. We weighed up the evidence from four high-quality studies ( randomised controlled trials).^{1 2 3 4}

• They all found that ibuprofen worked better than a dummy treatment (a placebo) in relieving migraine headaches.
• But three of the studies looked at only a small number of people (about 100 people in total).
• And some of the studies didn't analyse their data well enough.
• Also, one study used a different way of measuring whether people's migraine pain got better. This makes it difficult to compare its results to the results from other studies.

One further good-quality study (another randomised controlled trial) looked at how well over-the-counter doses of ibuprofen helped people with moderate or severe migraine headaches.⁵ The study included 660 patients and compared two doses of ibuprofen (200 milligrams and 400 milligrams) to a placebo tablet.

• The study showed that both doses worked better than the placebo tablet after two hours.
• The study also showed that only the 400-milligram dose was effective in treating severe pain.
• The side effects of treatment were similar among the groups.

For more details:

Read this information about the treatment in Clinical Evidence