Quote:
Originally Posted by lilypup
I just came off of a two day migraine complete with nausea. I get frequent "medium" headaches, but not too many migraines. I'm 58, and used to get a lot of them but not so much any more. I thought of going to the ER, but then figured they'd think I was drug seeking.
I told my GP about my headaches and she will not prescribe anything because 1) she doesn't want to prescribe on top of my psych meds 2) she doesn't know exactly what is causing my headaches so she wants me to get a brain scan.
I don't want to get a brain scan because they are pretty expensive and I don't need the health anxiety. I don't have a brain tumor..I had migraines most of my adult life and would be long dead if I had a tumor. (eyeball roll). I just have migraines like millions of other people.
I'm calling my old neurologist tomorrow. Hopefully, he's experienced enough in migraine meds and is willing to give me something.
Do any of you have bad migraines? Do you have any answers for me? This place has often been a good place to find ideas to suggest to my docs.
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Yes. Lots of experience here. What ultimately helps me is this:
- BOTOX preventive injections quarterly; not affordable without insurance
- For attacks that I still get, if I catch them early, promethazine, indocin (it may interact badly with lithium, but you are not on lithium), and imitrex. To increase the speed these meds (taken all at once) are absorbed by the body, I take the first two as rectal suppositories when I am at home (the suppositories require refrigeration, so when I am away from home, I carry pills in my purse), and Imitrex as a nasal spray. These abortive/acute treatments act synergistically.
- Since my main trigger is dehydration, I drink two glasses of weak tea with lemon and stevia at least every hour. I do not count how much I drink, though - I make sure that I pee water (literally - no color except for first morning urine or urine after I have been on the go for some time, but not at home or in the office).
It took me years to arrive at this protocol, but now that I have it, I am a pretty happy camper. I had debilitating pain in the past. Note that when I wake up with migraine pain, it is too late to administer acute treatments - the acute treatments are only effective if I catch precursors of pain, but, BOTOX makes attacks that do occur lighter; it makes them tolerable.
There is also a new monthly injectable preventable med. I will speak to the neurologist about it on Monday; I will update you.
Of Migraine prevention daily meds, Zonegran gave me such bad mania that I lost my job and Amitriptyline gave sustained hypomania. I do not recommend them, but of course tolerances and reactions are all individual. Depakote, a migraine preventive med, led to bad weight gain. In me it also induced bad hand tremor and a low platelet count; so, it had to be discountinued. Topomax gave me dizziness, sexual dysfunction, general malaise, and such aversion to food and drink that I actually started having more migraines since I was not eating and drinking enough fluids. I also occasionally forgot words (problems with word recall) even on the tiniest dose. Many people on this forum take Topamax and are happy, though.