Migraine Headaches Support Group

Migraine is a neurological disease, of which the most common symptom is an intense and disabling episodic headache. Migraine headaches are usually characterized by severe pain on one or both sides of the head and are often accompanied by photophobia (hypersensitivity to light), phonophobia (hypersensitivity to sound) and nausea.

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Brain & Nervous System
/ Migraine Headaches Support Group

rebound headaches

daninflorida
daninflorida
I had an appointment last week at the USF/Tampa General migraine clinic. The message repeated to me over and over again was that more than 10-15 doses of painkillers per month conditions the brain to receiving them. Of course at this point that's 2-3 days worth for me. I was told that no treatment would work for me while my brain is conditioned to such high doses of painkillers.

Medical Marijuana is not legal yet in FL and not available to me so I did not ask if that would be counted as a painkiller and included in the total.

I was prescribed a methylprendisone pack, another medicine similar to topamax and thorazine. The label on the thorazine says "for agitation". I looked it up on the internet and it says there's an off-label use for treatment of debilitating migraines.

I've only had my prescriptions filled for two days and I've managed to cut my painkillers down to one a day, still working and more reduction.
YvetteK
YvetteK
Ok, so a few things. On rebounds- migraine patients have such a high rate of rebound even after just 2x per week of medicine. That's just 8 doses a month. 15 doses a month for any type of medication, whether painkiller or triptan will give a rebound effect. The doctors at my headache center in Philadelphia don't use painkillers for that reason. My doctor doesn't even like the fact that I use excedrin (which doesn't really help all the time, just occasionally). It's like a caffeine headache. Every day, you get used to drinking coffee in the morning, that if you skip a morning, you get a bad headache because of the withdrawal. It's the same with painkiller. You take the painkillers so much that if you don't take it the headache comes back stronger.

Your methylprendisone pack is not like topamax or thorazine. It is a steroid meant to break the headache cycle to get you back on track to a headache free place. I have to take steroids every so ofter because I get into bad cycles where NOTHING will break the migraine, and I can be at a level 10 for 4 or more days. Only a steroid will work in that case.

As for thorazine, it's a pysch med, but it works great for migraine pain and severe nausea. I always have a heavy stash of thorazine because no other nausea medicine works for me. But once you take it (I don't know your dose) prepare to be loopy. But thorazine also saved me when I was undergoing chemotherapy. I was never nauseous because I was heavily medicated with thorazine.

The only warning about thorazine is that it can have the side effect of Tardive dyskinesia. So just watch out for that.

I hope the steroids and thorazine get to a pretty good place with your migraines, at least for a little while. Good luck!