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.