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Drug To Prevent Migraines Being Researched By Chicago Doctor

CHICAGO (CBS) -- It can strike quick and leave you unable to do anything, sometimes for days. Migraines debilitate more than 33 million people nationwide. Now a new clinical study is showing positive results in preventing them.

"Migraines is an invisible sickness. People don't know that you're suffering," said police officer Tina Olsen.

She suffers from chronic headaches 25 days out of a month. Often they turn into a migraine.

"I've missed days of work because of it. I've had to delay plans," she said.

Olsen's doctor, Danny Sugimoto, of Chicago's Cedar-Crosse Research Center, is involved in a national test study of a protein injection called ALD403. The intravenous treatment has been shown to reduce and even prevent migraines.

"For migraine prevention, there's nothing like it," Sugimoto said. "I'm a migraine sufferer, and I've been doing drug research for over 27 years, and for me it's very exciting. I agree, it is a breakthrough"

The research is still ongoing, and not yet published, but Olsen is encouraged.

"I'm excited to have a medication that will take care of three months at a time," she said.

Sugimoto said, so far, no one has complained of any side effects from ALD403.

"Everyone has been loving the drug. Again, we are blinded, and a lot of people have said that it's the first time they've been headache-free in years,"

Sugimoto said he hopes the drug passes regulatory guidelines to become widely available in the next two years.

"Please hurry. We, us migraine sufferers, we're waiting for this," Olsen said.

ALD403 is being tested by the pharmaceutical company Alder. It would be the first drug designed specifically to prevent migraines.

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