Sometimes if you use the narcotics multiple days in a row you can get rebound headaches...I believe most drs say not to take them more than 2-3 times per week. I take norco or oxycodone for pain. Narcotics only take the edge off the pain for me. Hope your headache subside again :)
Mal

thanks. I took it twice the first day an the headaches started. my dr told me I could take 2 if needed every 6 hrs I just took 1 an it gives a headache. she didnt say anything about only takeing it a few days she said to take it an gave me a refill an if needed more to call an dont let the pain get bad. It does the same for me takes the edge of pain off for a little bit.

What did they give you pain meds for if not for headaches?

I take hydrocodone and valium but they only take the edge off. Mist if the time I try to suffer through unless the headache if neck pain get really bad.

Hope

I have cellulities in my legs an they hurt an I hurt my left knee an was in a ton of pain.

Sorry for the misspelling. My hands aren't working right for some reason. If the headaches continue, I would ask for a different medication, maybe one with anti inflammatory properties and not just a narcotic. Celebrex is good and there is another narcotic med too( can't remember name) that works just as good but less potent as far as side effects go.

baclofen, robaxin, neurontin, and cymbalta daily, indocin as needed up to 3 per 24 hrs., 2 days per week max.

My 2nd opinion neuro told me never to take a narcotic because they'd always give me a rebound headache. He gave me a prescription for a muscle relaxer called Orphenadrine Citrate CR, 100 mg. Sadly, it doesn't help me at all... :-(

thank you all for the responses.

My doctor (PCP) took me off all pain meds. I'm suffering horribly on days when it's at its worst 10. I used to take hydrocodone up to 2 days a week. I want to ask my doctor about Tizanidine. It is not just a muscle relaxer. It's supposed to work on pain, too.

Gabapentin, T his is a wonder drug.


and for my knees which are bone on bone i take hydrocodone but i take a topical gel Voltaren Gel which is a wonder gel RX i have just begun for my knees.

Many doctors use the rebound excuse too often because they are afraid to write prescriptions for narcotics due to all the current hype in the media regarding narcotics today.

While it is true that some narcotics can cause rebound headaches, not every narcotic will have that effect. It all depends on your personal body chemistry. For instance, I can take Vicodin and Dilaudid day after day without any trouble, but, if I take repeated doses of Morphine I can guarantee I'll have a rebound headache. .You have to find what works for you.

The second reason doctors shy away from using narcotics is because they don't understand IH. Our disease is not well understood in the medical community. Even ER doctors, who see these cases more often than neurologists or General Practitioners are ignorant about IH. I was just in the ER and even though they've seen me a million times before, they still think that a MRI or CAT scan would show the high pressure. Doctors don't want to issue narcotics for something they can't understand.

And, the third reason is because the literature is too vague and our symptoms are too diverse. When they look up information on IH, most times they won't find it. So than they look up Pseudotumor Cerebri, they think "false tumor", and think we're hypochondriacs. If they read on further, and most won't take the time, they see that the primary symptom is a headache. The literature doesn't explain that that "headache" is the WORST F-ing HEADACHE A PERSON COULD POSSIBLY TOLERATE...WORSE THAN A MIGRAINE and similar to that of a freaking aneurysm!!!! In this case, they wonder why a Tylenol won't help you like it helps them when they have a headache. Then the read that you get pressure behind your eye, and they look into your eyes and either can't see papilledema because they aren't Optometrists or because you are an IH'er like me where headache is your primary symptom and paps are a rarity. Meanwhile, not only do we suffer from headache and vision disturbances, but, cognitive dysfunction, back and neck pain, dizzy spells and vertigo, nausea and vomiting, muscle and joint pain, mood fluctuations and finally chronic fatigue. But, forget about all that because most of that isn't in the literature. In fact, your neurologist most likely studied "Pseudotumor Cerebri" long ago in med school for a quick minute and forgot everything he/she had learned. And...most doctors will simply believe that if you just ate less and exercised more you'd be better anyway. (Nevermind the exercise intolerance!)

SO...Given all we are up against in the medical world, please know that your best advocate is you. Don't give up. Nobody should have to live with pain. The best thing you can do is learn all you can about IH. Through these posts and patients who've experienced the disease for a long time, to the IHRF website and of course, the web itself. Print off information and give it to your doctor, ask the IHR Foundation questions about IH and print off the responses to share, or, as I've done multiple times...Give him/her the website and have them pull up the information in front of you during your visit so you can discuss it on the spot!

My IH is complicated. I have secondary IH...In my case it was Mono and/or the strep virus. While an increase in weight gain will cause my pressures to go up, no amount of weight loss will make my IH go away. For many with the Idiopathic form of the disease weight loss "might" help...but, of course, that is not an easy road to take. Many of us have exercise intolerance and weight loss can be slow and difficult. For those who are interested, a well loved physician of mine once told me that the best way to lose weight and stay healthy was first drink lots of water and only water...no soda or juice. (Sorry) And, diet drinks are out of the question because they contain Aspertame or other sugar substitutions which will make your pressures rise when taken in high amounts. Secondly, and this is very easy....When you eat a protein (i.e. meat), eat it with lots of fresh vegetables, but never eat it with a carb (i.e. pasta or bread). Vice versa, if you eat carbs, eat those carbs with lots of fresh veggies, but never eat a carb with a protein. As long as you don't mix carbs with proteins you will lose weight, and guess what???? You can eat as much of that meal as you want. You don't have to deprive yourself. Eat those meals four hours apart and two hours after each of those meals you can have a piece of fruit....occasionally you can splurge and have a piece of chocolate or a bite or two of dessert in moderation. And lastly, after your last mealtime snack, you can't eat anything else. This is tough for me because I'm a night time snacker. But, once you break this habit it's easy. And, don't skip breakfast. I followed these rules while I was in his care and was in the best shape of my life....I'm trying to get back to that because I've cheated some along the way.

The other thing to watch for is weight increasing medications. My new doctor is trying to cure me by making jump through hoops like some sort of guinea pig in a test phase. He put me on Lyrica about a month or so ago. The med has helped tremendously by way of pain control. The problem is it has caused kidney stones, my hair to fall out, and I've gained 10 pounds!!!! Those 10 pounds, even though I have secondary IH, has made my Headache's worse and more frequent. Meds like Lyrica are Gabapentin, and antidepressants like Amitryptiline and Doxepin which all cause weight gain. (The Doxepin just put me in back in the ER!) So, while doctors might be inclined to disperse this line of meds, make sure they understand that any amount of weight gain as a side effect, could render the the purpose of this medication useless, as weight gain makes your pressures rise which brings on more pain, eventually voiding out the beneficial properties of the drug!

The other problem in my case is that I have sulfur allergies. While drugs like Lasix, Diamox and Topamax help many IH'ers, they make me break out in red spots or cause other nasty side effect. Moreover, they do very little to keep my pressures stable. We tried these drugs for 8 months and I thought I was going to die. Eventually, they decided that for me, this was not a good course of treatment.

Another issue for me is that therapeutic LP's, (LP's done for the purpose of reducing pressure), while helpful, the therapeutic value was short lived. My pressures would stay reduced for 24 - 48 hours before they were high again. In a 8 month period, I had endured approx. 15 LP's in an effort to reduce my pressures and provide some relief. So, I had endured that nightmare.

Then I went in for a VP shunt. Again, for many IH'ers this is helpful. The problem for me, however is three-fold. First, for reasons I don't understand, prior to my surgery a drain test to see if the shunt would truly make a difference, was never done. If you are ever considering shunt surgery, make sure a drain test is done first! Secondly, after my surgery it was later discovered that I have CSF Rhinorrhea or a CSF leak (a hole in my skull in the left temporal lobe), which makes it difficult for my shunt to work properly because my pressures rarely regulate. And lastly, because headache is my primary symptom (w/o paps), my shunt isn't always effective. Shunts are primarily used to save the eyesight and sadly, don't always cure the symptom of headache.

You might ask why I am including all this in an already long response to a thread regarding narcotic use. I did this because, this history was essential to my discussion with my physician regarding the need for narcotics to ease my pain. It's one thing for your doctor or neurologist to provide the occasional narcotic script for over the top pain. But, if you are suffering from daily, chronic pain; it is important for you to "prove" to your physician that you've tried everything else in the wake of being diagnosed with an incurable disease.

All that being said.....The problem with narcotics is that after using them for any length of time, their therapeutic value decreases. When this occurs, you will your body will either require an increase in the dosage or a stronger narcotic to help control the pain.. And, you must prepare yourself for the labels that come with narcotic use to control chronic pain. YOU WILL OFTEN BE ACCUSED OF BEING A DRUG SEEKER OR AN ADDICT!!!! For many people with chronic pain, me included, this can be THE most painful part of narcotic use.

Dr. Oz recently did a show on "Chronic Pain", wherein he spoke about how chronic pain was a disease. He labeled it a disease because unlike acute pain like knee pain that comes from an injury from falling off your bike....That pain may only occur once or twice in your life and your brain forgets about it. However, with chronic pain, when that pain occurs everyday and your pain receptors fire over and over again in the brain...that pain becomes a memory. So, even if you become "cured"...That memory in your brain remains which makes chronic pain a disease. And, that type of pain needs to be treated.

He also said that doctors who are asked to treat chronic pain will mostly think you are CRAZY! BECAUSE....They either think you are a hypochondriac, they think you are hormonal or depressed, they think you are a drug seeker or addict, or because they are ignorant about the cause of your pain. I have experienced all of these things. So the decision to use narcotics is not an easy choice. I pray everyday that my pain goes away so I don't have to use them. I wish I didn't.

The other misconception is that people and medical staff alike believe that people with chronic pain get a "high" off their meds. It has been proven in multiple studies, and I can attest firsthand that while the first week or two of using narcotics I felt an initial "buzz", after using them the last two and a half years for chronic pain I feel nothing except some relief from my pain. There is no high. I don't have slurred speech, I don't walk funny, I don't sleep all day. In fact, I drive, shop, clean, cook, etc. like anybody else.

The way I battle these misconceptions is by gaining trust. I see one doctor for my scripts. I use one pharmacy to fill my scripts. I see my doctor once a month to touch base on how things are going. I submit to spontaneous drug tests to insure that I'm taking what I say I am. If I have to go to the ER because my home pain protocol isn't working I go to only one ER. And, I have never, EVER, taken more than I've been prescribed. By doing these things, the medical professionals can never accuse me of being a drug seeker or addict.

IF after all that you are still interested or feel you still need to talk to your doctor about helping you by prescribing narcotics, the best narcotic for me has been Dilaudid. I take 4 mg. pills. Initially, I took one as needed for pain. Now, 2 1/2 years later, in conjunction with the Dilaudid, I use the Fentanyl patch which also helps. The Fentanyl patch is supposed to control the pain 24 hours a day and the Dilaudid is supposed to help with breakthrough pain. But, I feel like it's the other way around in my case. I also use Phenergan on an as needed basis for nausea, and in the rare case that I have vertigo, I use Valium for that. But, those last two meds I use maybe once every two or three months for one or two days. Someone else mentioned Baclofen. I did use Baclofen to help with muscular pain but found that it only helped somewhat, and oddly it makes you very gaseous!!! That's always fun! : )

If you don't have to use narcotics at all don't. But, if like me, you've tried everything else and your life is still only half a life because your pain is out of control than talk to your doctor. And lastly, a good over the counter drug to try which has done wonders for me, (surprisingly), is Excedrin Migraine. It can help with pressure headaches, not just migraine headaches...don''t know why.

Sorry so long...but, I felt it was all helpful. Hope I was right.

Best wishes,

MM3