Sphenopalatine Ganglion Blockade & the SphenoCath with Dr. Wade Cooper

Dr. Wade Cooper is the Director of Headache & Neuropathic Pain at the University of Michigan where he is also a Clinical Associate Professor in Neurology and Anesthesiology. Dr. Cooper holds a United Council for Neurologic Subspecialties (UCNS) board certification in Headache Medicine. Dr. Cooper has published numerous articles and medical textbook chapters. He serves on the Editorial Board for Headache, the official journal of the American Headache Society. What drew Dr. Cooper into the field of headache medicine was the immense, unmet need and lack of patient access to high-quality care.
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Learning Objectives:
1. Define the clinical anatomy of the sphenopalatine ganglion.
2. Increase knowledge of new research related to sphenopalatine ganglion block procedures.
3. Increase confidence in their ability to preform sphenopalatine ganglion block procedures in the clinical setting.

[@dmedlin8118]

One other comment for Dr. Cooper relative to his sense of "immense unmet need and lack of patient access to high quality care," is that the device he is promoting and associated with, the Sphenocath, is the epitome of lack of access, considering that migraine patients often are looking for an SPG block to break a migraine cycle and can't schedule their headaches a couple of months out for when a physician may have an opening. The devices are not making appearances in Urgent Care settings that I can find. Patients cannot obtain the devices, even with a prescription, often forcing them to find more immediate help using more readily available methods like cotton swab-based SPG blocks, or devices like the simple angiocath setup found in several migraine-related clinic videos on RUclips, where migraine centers train their patients to block themselves when headache strikes. That approach is much more in line with the behavior of migraine and the unmet needs of migraine patients. I've been treated by Sphenocath, and it is a slick device which I liked immensely, but when you can't get a block in a timely fashion, slickness doesn't count for much. Training patients to treat themselves on demand then providing devices through prescription has lots of precedent using much more dangerous devices such as insulin syringes, urinary catheters, and CGRP self-injectors. A fancy elongated rubber-tipped needle dripping a small amount of lidocaine doesn't even begin to make the "danger" list. The real need for protection apparently goes to driving repeat revenue into the practices of those administering the blocks. Thankfully, migraine clinics supporting angiocath-based solutions are placing their patients' needs at a higher priority.

[@112nickytaylor]

I had one yesterday and still woke up with a headache today? How long does it take to start working? Or does that mean mine didn’t work?

[@GuiLOST-lz8su]

You have cluster headeaches? This doesnt worked?