Posted by Snoozy on April 30, 2003, at 20:07:14
In reply to MIGRAINES, posted by dde on April 30, 2003, at 17:26:53
I was a little bit younger than your daughter is now when I started having migraines. When I was a teenager, I also started having daily tension-type headaches - this went on for about 10 years. My doctors told me to stop any type of analgesic/painkiller because they thought the daily tension headaches were actually rebound headaches from the meds. About 4 years ago I did stop taking any painkillers, and my daily tension headaches were pretty much gone. Today if I take tylenol for a muscle ache, I do get a rebound headache. I still have migraines, but that's a whole other kettle of fish :)
I just posted something about this yesterday - earlier this year I saw a segment on 20/20 about analgesic rebound headaches and about the same time there was an article in the New York Times magazine about it. I tapered my painkillers over time, just did it on my own. If your daughter does try to stop the medications, be careful about tapering off caffeine (Excedrin). People with migraines tend to be very sensitive to caffeine withdrawl.
Did your daughter get any of the triptan rescue medications? When I do caffeine withdrawl, I make sure I have plenty on hand!
She's lucky there are now good treatments available for migraine. I'm somewhat lucky I suppose, as I only had to suffer through about 5 years of no migraine relief.
Good luck to her, and if you guys have any questions about my experience, I'd be happy to answer them!
> > It's great you've found something that helps your migraines. That is an excellent idea to keep an emergency stash of Effexor. I had a horrible experience coming off Effexor. It's definitely not you - I had all of those symptoms and so do many many others when they miss a dose.
> >
> > If you've already heard this before, I apologize. But if you do drink, stay away from anything that is aged - wine, beer, basically everything. The migraine clinic told me that if I want to drink, I should stick with vodka. Don't know it that helps or not!
> >
> > > Hi all - been reading through the messages and I just thought I'd put in my two cents as a three-year Effexor user, which is fairly long-term I suspect. My dosage is fairly light, 75mg per day, although I'm about to go to 150mg per day due to an increase in the frequency of my migraines.
> > >
> > > I was prescribed Effexor XR as a preventative for my migraines and also because of some mood irregularities possibly associated with the migraines. I had the side effects almost immediately after taking my very first dose - sweating, felt extremely hyper, etc. But that faded quickly and I haven't felt a side effect since unless I miss consecutive doses (more about that later.)
> > >
> > > Effexor has helped me a lot - in tandem with BuSpar, my migraines are well under control, and my mood swings less frequent. I probably don't help matters by drinking alcohol liberally and frequently; for the first year I took Effexor I wasn't drinking at all, the second I was drinking lightly and lately I've been partying down and I can really tell the difference. I'm going to stop drinking again as I've also been prescribed an antiepileptic.
> > >
> > > Anyway, the only time I have had side effects is when I have missed more than a day's dose. If I miss two days' doses, I'm f***ed, plain and simple. Brain shivers, electric shock sensations, cottonmouth, extreme depression, you name it. The thing is, I can tell it's the drug and not me going mad. It's like an amazingly bad LSD trip, kind of, only it doesn't go away quickly like LSD does. My advice to anyone just starting out with this drug, is to hold back a pill or two from each batch, just in case you ever get in a situation where you can't get your script refilled as quickly as you need it.
> > >
> > > No one should be too scared of this drug, but definitely go into it with your eyes open. Good advice for any of these very powerful psychotropics.
> >
> >
>
> About the alcohol and migraines: I had my oldest daughter into a neurologist YESTERDAY about dibilitating migraines. He told her to drink only Vodka....very funny considering she is only 18. He also said she was having rebound headaches from taking tylenol and excedrine for the migraines....said noone tells us in America that these meds can be addicting and/or cause rebound. I was impressed. Best of luck, de
poster:Snoozy
thread:13781
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030429/msgs/223518.html