Ozzie,

Like you, I have migraines constantly.....like 24/7. This started just after they started trying all kinds of antidepressants on me (1995). I had never even had a mild headache all my life (40+ years at that time). Then they seemed to end up being constant. The neurologist I had put my on the normal migraine meds (immetrex & what ever it was at the time). That messed up my heart, so that stopped almost immediately. Then he put me into the hospital for 1 week with IV treatment of DHEA (I think it was). With that, he was also giving me morphine during that time for the migraine pain....ended up having that itching all over to the morphine....thought I would go out of my mind with the itching & still had the migraine pain anyway.

Then they did an MRI & something around my neck area & it showed that I in years past, I had a whip lash & neck injury that needed to be corrected. So then came the neck fusion surgery....around 1999. The pain specialist I saw at the hospital during the neck fusion started me on the duragesic patch (100ug). At that time, I started going to a local pain specialist who ended up being a real jerk. After the neck fusion had no effect on my migraines, then this new pain specialist tried some other procedures that did nothing. Even with the fentynal patch, the pain was constant, so he was giving me other pain meds for along with that instead of upping the dose of the fentynal. It wasn't until they found another sourse of fentynal (that you suck on every 4 hours) that the pain was finally controlled & I could function again. That was good until they changed the method of making that med & it quit working. I was back in pain & he wouldn't do anything about it except go back to what wasn't working. At one appointment, he suggested using my extra patches I had accumulated & double up.....I did, I the pain was completely controlled. When I went back to him, he denied ever saying that & refused to treat me.....telling me to get another Dr. (my husband heard him say that also, so it wasn't just me hearing what I wanted to hear)

The search for another pain specialist started & thus came another MRI of the brain. The new pain specialist said he saw white spots at the base of my brain. They were called leisions......he said that was a definite indication that I have massive migraine activity. (just wondering if what they saw in your MRI was the leisions rather than a mild stroke.....they can look similar according to what I was told). Anyway, this pain specialist decided that since the 200ug of duragesic fentynal patches worked, he wouldn't change anything. I wasn't effected by the large amount of narcotic.....it just made the pain go away & I was functional again for the first time in about 9 years. I have been on this high dose for over 4 years now & it is still working. I haven't built up a tolerance & the migraine pain is completely controlled. The constant amount of pain med that is there with the patches is wonderful. I have no breakthrough pain, no rebound pain.....no pain at all. I am glad that the narcotic didn't make me so out of it that I put on my cloths backwards & inside out. I can still drive my car without any problems.......I am just wonderfully functional without pain keeping me in my dark, quiet, no smell room to keep from getting sicker than the migraines were constantly making me.

Look into the possibility of what they saw being the leisions that are normal with migraine activity rather than an indication of a stroke......& I would definitely get a second opinion before ever believing the stroke possibility.....one Dr's opinion doesn't make it true....& sometimes even 2 don't.....you need a migraine specialist who knows what MRI's on migraine patients look like....this is actually a very new area of knowledge & most migraine specialists are very uneducated still. I also went to a migraine specialist at UCLA while going to the jerk pain specialist. She said I didn't have migraines & all I had to do was exercise & the pain would go away.....I couldn't get out of bed for the pain.....let alone get out & exercise.......she looked at a previous MRI & saw nothing....those leisions had to have been there at that time.....she just didn't see them.

Another Dr I saw when I was looking for a new pain specialist, said that she would take me off all the meds & the migraines would go away.....she was going on the assumption that the migraines were rebound......but refused to tell me how she would treat me if that didn't work or wasn't the case......she was so sure that was what is was that she wouldn't look at any other possibility.....not the Dr for me.

I have a guess that I also made the migraines worse with the many OD's I did on the antidepressants......It would make sense that those meds were causing migraines when I was put onto them....when I massivly OD'ed on the same meds, that had to have messed up my brain chemistry. I hope it isn't permanently....& that some day, the migraines will go away. I know now that I sometimes get the migraines even with the pain med, I just don't feel the pain because the symptoms are there sometimes.

I hope my post can give you some information to take with you to your Dr appointment...so you can ask some questions & maybe look on the internet for more information about migraines & related brain leisions.

Keep me posted....I am interested to know how everything goes for you.....your situation sounds so similar to mine.....I truely understand how you are feeling.

Gentle hugs to not hurt the head,
Debbie