Types of Nasal Delivery Drugs and Medications in Iranian Traditional Medicine to Treatment of Headache

CONTEXT Headache is a common symptom throughout the world. The main purpose of patient-centered approaches is the utilization of useful and simple treatment. Nowadays, there is a rising propensity toward herbal remedies. Nasal route is one of the ancient and topical prescriptions used in headache. In Iranian traditional medicine, physicians such as Avicenna were prescribing herbal drugs through the nose to treat a variety of central nervous system diseases like headache. In this review paper, authors have attempted to introduce different types of nasal administrations which were used in Iranian traditional medicine for the treatment of headaches. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION Initially, we studied two different types of Canon and separated all herbs used in the treatment of headache. Next, all plants were classified according to the method of prescription. Then, we pick out all the plants which were nasally utilized in the treatment of headache and divided them based on the method of administration. In order to find scientific names of herbs, we used two different botany references. Moreover, we conducted various researches in scientific databases with the aim of finding results concerning the analgesic and antinociceptive effects of herbs. Throughout the research, key terms were "analgesic" and "antinociceptive "with the scientific names of all herbs separately. The databases searched included PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane library and SID. RESULTS 35 plants were prescribed for the treatment of headaches, which were all nasally used. These plants took either the form of powder, liquid or gas (steam). They were divided in to six categories according to the method of prescription. The Percentage of usage for each method was as follows: 62% Saoot (nasal drop), 25% Shamoom (smell), 17% Inkabab (vapor), 11% Nafookh (snuff), 11% Nashooq (inhaling) and 2% Bokhoor (smoke). CONCLUSIONS Medications that are used via nasal delivery have greater effect than oral medications. Iranian physicians were fully aware of systemic effects of topical medications, including prescription drugs through the nose. The study of ancient medical texts helps us in identification of herbal medicine and the investigation of new way for the preparation of drugs.