choose your poison

migraines affect individuals in very distinct & different ways...this is not meant to be inclusive of the feelings of everyone, just my observations & notes on what i've personally tried for relief.

what "works": (and by works i mean delays the occurance of pain or reduces pain during attack)

imitrex (although slow acting, quickly recurrent migraines & 'rebound' headaches when you cease imitrex for only a few hours/days)
ice packs on the head & neck while in a hot bath
'cool headed' essential oil on the temples (a mix of mint & eucalyptus, avail. at fruits and passions. although it sounds cheesy it opens up your airways and helps)
acupuncture (traditional chinese, not the kind your physio guy claims he can do with western medicine)
amitriptyline 20mg - seems to be doing okay so far, but contraindicated with cocurrent imitrex or other triptan use due to the danger of 'seratonin syndrome'

what doesn't (and some rediculous things people have made me do):

feeling sorry for yourself
topomax
beta blockers (i've tried both propranolol & metoprolol) - these have actually now been published as ineffective migraine prophylactics
zomig
staying away from the 'danger foods' (aged cheese, red wine, chocolate)
reducing stress
exercise
changes in the weather
chiropractic
osteopathic cranial-sacral adjustments
imitrex nasal spray
pulling the adult teeth down from your upper palette because your crack dentist assumes that's putting pressure on your brain
getting xrays of your skull to be told that your head sits to far forward
naproxin
exedrin migraine
tylenol
advil (including the one they market for "migraine")
combining your meds taken with alka-seltzer (as a form of a liquid NSAID) to 'jump start' your other meds into action (the citrony taste almost made me puke just from drinking it)
maxalt
axert (they go but then come back)
ginger
codeine-containing drugs
some weird over-the-counter migraine pills i got while in england

natalie, sponsored by imitrex

Current meds as of 30/03/07:
Imitrex oral tabs 100 mg (recommended dose of 25 mg - to be upped as deemed necessary)
ZomigRapimelt sublingual tabs 2.5 mg (for those times when the $25/pill of imitrex get you down and the doctor hands you samples of other triptan drugs to tide you over)
Amitriptyline tabs 20 mg (daily x2 before bed as a prophylactic)
B12 (monthly injections)
Iron (taken as a daily supplement)
BioMag (Magnesium formula thought to be involved in blood vessel tone)

word to the wise

i met someone at the last conference i attended in banff recently who sounded like she was living my life, only 3 steps ahead of me. i said i had a 'migraine' at the table, and upon hearing 'i get migraines too' i looked up to give her the "do you REALLY have them, or are you one of these people who gets a tylenol-cured-headache and yells it from the rooftops" once-over. well low and behold, she had it tougher than i do. she was on a cocktail of imitrex, amitriptyline, and the pill a few years ago when out of nowhere she woke from bed one night, looked in the mirror and noticed her face was drooping on one side. she woke her husband who she instructed to drive her to the ER since she could feel this was like something she'd never experienced before. she was young 20's at the time and ended up having a stroke. years of recovery, and re-learning how to both speak and walk followed. now she's restricted to gravol and demerol injections and is covered with injection-related bruises. scary thing is the demerol has stopped having an effect due to her constant use of the drug. she met an astounding number of young 20-something yr old women in rehab who were recovering from similar incidents of migraine-related stroke. on a 'doctors who prescribe the pill to women with migraine should lose their liscence' caution, i immediately edited my medication regime. with a higher incidence and risk of blot clot formation on drugs such as these, any constriction of blood vessels in your brain (let alone on the optic nerve associated with migraine-related aura) are made prone to the effects of these clots restricting blood flow to areas of the brain and the following occurance of stroke. migraineurs will know that the common drug 'formula' for which to 'manage' your migraines is composed of both a drug taken upon the occurance of the headache, and a daily med taken for migraine prophylaxis. She's now on topirimate (topomax) for daily prevention having stopped amitriptyline, I've just been switched to amitriptyline after being frustrated with the 'forgetting words and feeling slow' side effects of a very ineffective topomax (at least for me). Having switched our two drugs we found great comfort in knowing you're never alone in the insanity. She advised me as to the drowsiness of amitriptyline (often feeling like a walking zombie during the day due to it's sedative effects). Let this serve (as it did for me) as an eye-opening word to the wise for women with migraine on the pill. You're not just a stat in a medication product monograph. It CAN happen to you. However, for most it's not real until you see the face of a woman who it happened to. And her husband re-telling the tale of how he felt when he feared she may die or never walk again in the hospital. The best you can do in a world where doctors shrug off migraines, is to be an informed patient & make your health your own responsibility. Do benefit vs. risk analysis and ask yourself often if your meds could be stopping a headache by inadvertently posing a danger to your very existance.

and it begins...

as i sit here amidst years of 1/2 written personal migraine 'diaries', i realize that the tactic prescribed to me by many confused neurologists in my past is rediculously ineffective. to scrawl '3 day migraine' repeatedly on scraps of old paper and loblaws receipts only to combine these into said 'diary' accomplishes far less than anyone would think. maybe one day i'll open a museum where people can come and read the entries for their own amusement. maybe i'll be buried with it...or maybe the point is that since everyone is so sick of hearing 'my head hurts' at work, that the diary is supposed to be the friend that always listens when you have to vent. in any event, it's pointless and once again, i'm frustrated.

i therefore propose an improved solution to the problem. now i'm not a neurologist by any means but i feel that my 'life experience' living in this hell pretty much gets me the job. instead of living alone with this disorder, i propose to lay the groundwork here for something with a great deal of potential power. a kind of migraine 'self-help' if you will. my journals are no longer left unpublished. i'll compose my "day-in-the-life" stories in attempts to give support to others out there who understand, and to perhaps receive support in return. i'll link out to current research being conducted on this condition through the World Headache Alliance & the World Heath Organization's "lifting the burden" global campaign to reduce the burden of headache. read what you want, say what you can, but find solace in this: on the days where you feel that all is lost, you are not alone.