Treatments and Services

The Cincinnati Children’s Headache Center also offers more targeted inpatient treatments for patients who are already part of our outpatient clinics.

Infusion Center

The infusion center is part of Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, where patients with migraines resistant to the outpatient treatment plan can be admitted and receive intravenous therapies. The center has some available beds during business hours, and patients can bypass a referral to the emergency room and be admitted directly for an infusion.

One of our headache specialist nurse practitioners will initially evaluate the patients to ensure there is no secondary cause for the headache (such as a viral illness, infection, increased blood pressure, head injury, or other). If the headache is considered a resistant migraine and a bed is available, the patients will be admitted receiving a combination of medicines to try to bring the pain down or break the headache.

If the headache is still unresponsive to those outpatient therapies, admission to the inpatient team for more prolonged treatment will be discussed.

Inpatient Headache Team

The inpatient headache team is a multidisciplinary team (Child neurologist / headache specialist, headache fellow, pediatric and neurology residents, behavioral medicine specialists, and neurology nurses). The team offers a specialty approach to headache treatment. Patients will receive intravenous treatment with headache-specific medication for 2-3 days, sometimes longer, in an effort to get to a functioning level with a return to baseline pain. The treatment is reserved for patients who are having a severe acute exacerbation for their headaches and have been evaluated and treated by Cincinnati Children’s outpatient neurology group for migraine.

Patients are evaluated by the inpatient behavioral medicine team to help with pain-coping skills.