I had headaches that were so bad the pain level was about a 15 on the scale of 1 to 10. They went on for months & months & were worse when they tried new antidepressants. The only time I would get relief was the 8 hours after a demoral shot in the ER & that was about every 3 days. They thought if was from a neck injury I had when I was thrown from a horse about 20 years prior....it was from something like a whiplash.....so they did a neck fusion, but the pain never went away. I never ever had even a mild headache before they started giving me anti-depressants & almost every one had the side effect of migraines.
They got so bad after the neck fusion that like I said, I was in the ER every 3 days. During that time, I was going to a pain specialist then did other procedures that were supposed to help migraines but didn't have any effect. They finally put me on a fentynal patch, but even that dose wasn't strong enough to stop the pain. He refused to up the dosage even though he suggested trying a stronger dose (he denied ever saying that but both my husband & I heard him say it). At that point, he refused to treat me any more. I found another pain specialist who told me the migraines would go away if I went off the meds (I think she thought they were rebound headaches since they weren't breakthrough headaches....because the pain was there continually). I didn't like her, so decided to get another opinion. The pain specialist I am now seeing looked at my MRI & saw all the white spots (leisions) he said indicated massive migraines & agreeded to up the dose of fentynal to using 2 100ug patches every 3 days. I started on that dose over 4 years ago & haven't had the migraine pain since. I know that I have migraines, especially when I eat chocolate, but because I feel no pain, I only have the sensations of the migraine without the pain. I hate being on that level of narcotics for so long, but as long as it is working, I don't want to change anything.
I couldn't imagine going back to the life of having to lay in bed in a dark room with no sound or smells because it all made me sick to my stomach. I don't know what I am going to do here in Kentucky, but my current Dr said it would be ok to continually come back to him all the time to get my prescription.
I can totally relate to your pain & can only hope that you are able to find some relief like I did. It took me years & a lot of health issues, but for at least the last 4 years, I feel as good as I did before starting the antidepressant experiments.
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Leo's favorite place was in the passenger seat of my truck. We went everywhere together like this.
Leo my soulmate will live in my heart FOREVER Nov 1, 2002 - Dec 16, 2018
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