Two separate studies have found two new drugs that can prevent migraine attacks.

Both the studies are of the phase II type, which means larger studies need to be conducted to confirm the drugs' effectiveness and safety. The drugs aim at preventing migraine attacks from occurring rather than stopping them once they have started.

The first study was conducted on a drug called ALD403.  Half of the 163 participants with migraine from 5 to 14 days per month were given the drug while the remaining patients were treated with a placebo for 24 weeks. Researchers found that the patients treated with the drug had approximately 5.6 days fewer migraine days per month compared to those who received a placebo. Researchers also noted that 16 percent of the participants who received the drug didn't have any migraine attacks for 12 weeks.

"Migraine remains poorly treated, and there are few effective and well tolerated treatments approved that prevent attacks from occurring," said David Dodick, MD, of Mayo Clinic Arizona in Phoenix and a member of the American Academy of Neurology, who was also an author on both studies. "There is a huge treatment need for migraine -- the third most common and seventh most disabling medical disorder in the world."

The second study was conducted for a drug named LY2951742. The study lasted for 12 weeks during which 217 people who had migraine four to 14 days per month received biweekly subcutaneous injections of either the drug or a placebo. At the end of the 12 weeks, those that received the drug experienced 4.2 fewer migraine days while those who received placebo had 3 fewer migraine days per month. However, there were some side effects of the drug which included pain at the injection site, upper respiratory tract infections and abdominal pain.

"We're cautiously optimistic that a new era of mechanism-based migraine prevention is beginning," Dodick said.

In March this year, the FDA approved two treatments for migraine. The first one was a medical migraine prevention device named "Cefaly," developed by STX-Med in Herstal from Belgium.  Cefaly is the first transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) device specifically authorized for use prior to the onset of pain due to migraine headaches.

The second one was a drug named Topamax, which can be used for migraine prevention among individuals aged between 12 and 17 years.

Statistics show that more than 37 million Americans suffer from migraines. Some migraine studies estimate that 13 percent of adults in the U.S. population have migraines, and 2-3 million migraine sufferers are chronic. Almost 5 million in the U.S. experience at least one migraine attack per month, while more than 11 million people blame migraines for causing moderate to severe disability.

An interesting study by University Of Michigan School Of Dentistry researchers found that Twitter has become the new platform for migraine sufferers to express their pain. The study stated that 65 percent of actual migraine sufferers tweeted about their pain with 74 percent of migraine tweets coming from women and 17 percent from men.

"As technology and language evolve, so does the way we share our suffering," said principal investigator Alexandre DaSilva from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry in a statement. "It's the first known study to show the instant and broad impact of migraine attacks on modern patients' lives by decoding manually each one of their individual attack-related tweets."

The two studies will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 66th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, April 26 to May 3, 2014.