Migraine Headaches Support Group

A few years ago I was prescribed Zanaflex as a preventative for chronic tension headaches. I started at 4mg, taken at bedtime, because it does make you very drowsy. I was increased over time to 8mg and then to 12mg. My dr said the increasing was fine as long as I didn't have next morning drowsiness, which I never did.

I did have some lessening of the tension headaches. The reason I ended up weaning off and eventually quitting it was this...I found that the muscle relaxing (drowsiness) effect only lasted about 4 hours for me, so somewhere around 1-2am I would wake up. It was like my muscles would be SO relaxed that then when it wore off, my body would notice the difference and it would wake up. This effect got worse as the dosage increased. I didn't have any other side effects.

I am on Tizanidine (I forgot to mention this in my other post). I take 4mg at bedtime, and my Neurologist will probably up it to twice a day starting in September. It is supposed to cause drowsiness, but I'm on so many medications that cause drowsiness. I sleep about 10 hours a night, but I wake up constantly.
This drug has not caused any bad side effects for me!

Thanks. It appears that there is some kind of possible reaction between Verapamil and Zanaflex so I will not be starting it until we have found out for sure if Verap works for me.

All I can say about Zanaflex is that it will make you drowsy and help you sleep, whick may be a good thing. I would suggest if it does work for you to ask the MD to prescribe Zanaflex 4mg 2 x /day at bedtime. That way when the first 4mg wears off in 3-4hours, you can take another 4mg and possibly get around 6-8 hours of sleep. Hope this helps you.
nsm