New Survey Reveals Headache Sufferers' Realities And The Benefits Of Treating Early

PARSIPPANY, N.J., June 1, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Findings from a new WebMD survey show that one out of three respondents report suffering from headaches weekly. That's a lot of meetings, baseball games, and bedtime stories missed. To kick-off National Headache Month, the makers of Excedrin®, a leader in headache relief for nearly 50 years, and WebMD, the leading source of health information, are educating headache sufferers on the condition and, more importantly, how to manage head pain, with new tools and engaging content.

"Here's a situation where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. By coupling the headache expertise that the makers of Excedrin offer with the timely and trusted health information provided by WebMD, we now have an even more robust offering for headache sufferers everywhere," said Jason Milligan, Senior Brand Manager, Excedrin.

"Millions of consumers turn to WebMD each month to find information about managing headaches and migraines," said Dr. Michael Smith, Chief Medical Editor, WebMD. "Both WebMD and the makers of Excedrin have a shared goal of helping consumers to better understand their headache symptoms so they can make more informed decisions about treatment options." 

An element of the collaboration includes a survey conducted by WebMD, which shows significant differences between what headache sufferers are doing to treat their pain and what doctors recommend. According to the survey, 46% of respondents choose to "tough out" their headaches, despite doctor advice. In fact, nine out of ten physicians suggest not toughing out headaches and eight out of ten suggest treating headaches early, because there is support for the idea that medications work better when taken at the first sign of a headache.

In addition to key insights from the survey, the following resources are now available:

• To help headache and migraine sufferers easily understand which Excedrin product is right for them, the makers of Excedrin developed a Product Selector Tool, available on Excedrin.com. Since headaches come in many shapes and sizes with a variety of triggers, the tool includes a short quiz to help identify the user's symptoms and provides a product recommendation that best suits their needs.
• Consumers and healthcare professionals will also have access to headache-related content and tools developed by WebMD's editorial team on WebMD.com/headaches and Medscape.com. These destinations will feature news and articles related to mild to moderate, tension, cluster, and migraine headaches and slideshows that depict surprising headache triggers. In addition, consumers can access the WebMD Headache Assessments tool, which helps consumer analyze headaches they may experience, and the WebMD Headache Map, which provides content related to possible headache types based on the headache location and frequency.

For more information about headaches and treatment visit Excedrin.com.

To learn more about causes and effects of headaches visit WebMD.com/headaches and Medscape.com.

Survey Information: WebMD conducted research surveys amongst consumers and healthcare professionals to assess attitudes and behaviors surrounding headaches. The purpose of the research was to garner information from sufferers and those who treat to better understand condition triggers, symptomology, opinions, behavioral habits and practices surrounding headache pain. WebMD looked to further measure headache severity by type of headache to gauge consumer perceptions and understanding of the different types of headaches and their associated treatment. 

Source: WebMD Professional and Consumer Headache Perceptions (2015); Professional N=802; Consumer N= 2557.

About GSK Consumer Healthcare

GSK Consumer Healthcare is one of the world's largest consumer healthcare companies.  Our purpose is to help more people around the world to do more, feel better and live longer with everyday healthcare products.  We have a heritage that goes back over 160 years.  We own some of the world's best loved healthcare brands, including Sensodyne®, Theraflu®, Excedrin®, Nicorette® and NicoDerm®CQ®, Flonase®, and TUMS®. These brands are successful in over 100 countries around the world because they all show our passion for quality, guaranteed by science. They are inspired by the real wants and needs of the millions of people who walk into pharmacies, supermarkets, market stalls and go on-line all over the world every day, and choose us first.

Our goal is to build a global, growing business we call a Fast Moving Consumer Healthcare (FMCH) company, dedicated to everyday healthcare with all of the scientific expertise and quality guarantees that demands, working at the speed and with the genuine consumer understanding the modern world expects.

About GlaxoSmithKline

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