Anyone suffer from migraines here?

WOW. To believe that my nemesis has appeared on here. I hate these things. I started learning about these things when I was 18 and got my first one. I was driving to college to set up my schedule for my first semester when I got one while I was driving. I didn't know what I was, but I stopped and bought some Tylonol. Well I found out that didn't work when I blacked-out and woke up doing 95 mph in the grass in the middle of the interstste, about 300 yards from a bridge. What a horrible experience.

Over the next few years I had CT's MRI's and everything the doctors could think of. I tried muscle relaxers because they thought it was stress and was even put on steroids at one point, don't remember what that doctor thought. I finally got one while on deployment with the Marine Corps, and the Navy Doctor gave me something called Midrin. This was the best thing that I ever got. However, I have never been able to find a medication that works without me having to go to sleep to get rid of them. Midrin is not as easy to find now, but I have also found Duradrin to be just as effective. I have tried Imitrex, but that didn't work.

Now I typically am hospitalized when I get one of these, due to dehydration from throwing up so much and for the severe pain. Due to my being deathly allergic to Morphine and Codeine, they usuualy give me Demorall. About five years ago I started getting new symptoms with my migraines and this made my mother nervous. Now, before I get a migraine,three symptoms occur in order: first my arms will start to go numb, then the lower portion of my face goes numb and then my sight becomes severly restricted like tunnel vision. Well this made my mom force me to go get another battery of tests. She sent to a doctor that is a friend of the family. He wanted to draw some blood, what's new. I'm glad he did, as he was able to find something that many other doctors never did. What he found was that my Cardio CRP was too high. What is that you ask, it is the viscosity of your blood. Now in case some of you do not know how a migraine works the blood vessels in your brain constrict, causing a rduction in blood flow and a higher blood pressure. This is where the pain comes from. Well add thick blood to the mix, and you get an even higher preesure which equals more pain. This doctor told me that if I took one aspirin every morning, that the chance of getting a migraine waas greatly reduced, and he was right. Now I get about 1 a year, and have not had a severe one since.

Hope that may have helped someone to alleviate the great pain suurounding this horrible condition.

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Originally Posted by jeffnme

on a side note...I took imitrex once. My doctor said it shouldn't bother me too much. Well, it did! I could not even see straight! They think I had a major reaction to it! So I will not take that again!

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You should ask your doctor for a sample of Maxalt. It's the same type of drug as Imitrex, but there aren't as many side effects. BTW, I experienced the same thing as you... I was taking ibuprofen by the handfuls and eventually I had a severe reaction. It turns out that it was affecting my liver pretty bad. Pain relievers actually do very little for my migraines, even codeine and vicodin will only relieve it for a couple of hours, but then it comes back with a vengeance. Now I get by with daily high-blood pressure medication (verapamil) to keep the migraines at bay and only have to take Maxalt about once a week.

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Originally Posted by muddoc

Now in case some of you do not know how a migraine works the blood vessels in your brain constrict, causing a rduction in blood flow and a higher blood pressure.

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Actually, most of the pain from a migraine comes when the blood vessels dilate. Here's a quote I found that sums it up better than I could:

"Here's more-or-less science's best idea of what happens physically during an attack: First, blood vessels serving posterior, ventral brain areas constrict much smaller than they should, due to a variety of triggers partially listed below. Note that vasoconstriction also causes many garden-variety headaches, but with migraine the constriction serves as a predecessor to what actually causes the pain. Next, nerves in the meninges, a layer of tissue surrounding the brain, sense the constriction and signal the blood vessels to dilate. The vessels then do so, but because they had constricted so much, they overcompensate and dilate much more than necessary. The throbbing, sickening, unholy migraine pain is caused by too much blood rushing too quickly through the vessels themselves, doing them additional damage."

I blacked out from a migraine once when i was in school,i fell down a bank of mud near a staircase outside,and then i woke up.nobody even knew what happened.i usually take something with codeine in it,they usually hit migraines fairly quick. oh yeah, cheers for correcting the title,didnt know how to change the spellin.

blah, maxalt and imitrex don't do anything for me. i need to try something else, but i guess i'm lucky in that i don't get them so badly that i throw up or pass out or anything. painkillers in general don't really work on me--my mom is the same way. :( you could give us morphine all day and we'd never know the difference. please, just knock me out and wake me when it's over!

ikm the same,i took so many painkillers years ago for migraines that iv grown imune to most of them.but usually something with codeine works pretty well.
pure codeine would be class but you cant get it here and its an opiate so its just as addictive as heroine so it would be to risky to get it.

I have gotten about 3 migraines in my life. Usually the trigger for me is, staying out too late (with or without drinking involved..), then getting not enough sleep but having to wake up early, and it usually being hot and sunny out the next morning. Ouch.. I just lie in the dark and sit it out; motrin seems to help marginally but not enough to get rid of it.
Now, tinnitus! I am suffering horribly from it right now, because Mark's band played last night and I still can't hear. I hope that they stop ringing soon.. :(

What a coinkidink! I woke up in the middle of the night last night with a smallish migraine, so I took some advil(like 6) and now it's gone! My liver is probably comparable to that of an alcoholic's, the way I take advil for everything. :8:

Mike developed horrible migraines year before last...really scary stuff. My hubby is a tough guy but I've never seen anything like the pain that would hit him out of the blue. All sorts of tests as developing this suddenly well into your thirties can indicate major problems. Then the poor guy nearly had a stroke from the meds given to control the migraines! Turns out it was all traceable back to another med he was taking that triggered the migraines in the first place. Adjustment of that med....no more migraines and a HUGE sigh of relief for the whole family.

Yes, I get them, and have off and on for yeeeeeeeears, but have only experienced one that had an aura before hand.


My sister is on medication for both the classic and the chronic ones. Mine are usually triggered by working all night, being up all the next day, & not eating or drinking (winter or summer, but summer is worse b/c of the heat) b/c I'm busy running errands, cleaning house, :blahblah: :blahblah: I can also get them with weather changes. Storm fronts moving in from the coast and the associated atm pressure changes will trigger one. Sometimes it's the way I sleep, and getting a knot in the back of my neck and head.

Allison my sister, gets emotional/puking sick with 'em. Me, I'm usu. just light and pressure sensative, to the point that even my pillow hurts my head. If 2-3 extra strength excedrin don't work or those WITH ibuprofen, then it's 1/2 a perc and sleep.

Allison told me about the specialist she goes to. There's some drug that they give ppl as a preventative....you take it all the time, as a therapy, instead of waiting for the killer pain and try to end it. Her Dr. told her that if you're so much in pain you're taking meds like that, then it's too late. You need to take them BEFORE the pain becomes debilitating.

I have the name of the family of drugs written down somewhere and will try to find it and post it here. Maybe that will help someone at some future time.