Clusterheadaches.com Message Board


    
      
        Clusterheadaches.com Message Board
        (http://www.clusterheadaches.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi)
      

        Daily Chat >> General Posts >> Help with Migraines
        
(Message started by: BMoneeTheMoneeMan on Apr 17^th, 2008, 10:27pm)

Title: Help with Migraines
Post by BMoneeTheMoneeMan on Apr 17^th, 2008, 10:27pm

My brother in law suffers from migraines and he has not really found anything to help yet. He has tried several different types of triptans, each with varying degrees of success, but has not found a preventative which has helped. He has tried 2 anti-depressants which are supposed to help migraines and he has tried 2 anti-seizure meds but nothing has helped. He also has tried a couple of pain meds with no real success.

Anyone have any recommendations for a preventative for migraines?

Thanks
B$

Title: Re: Help with Migraines
Post by nani on Apr 17^th, 2008, 10:29pm

Clusterbusters? I know that psilocybin aborts migraines, I'm not too sure of the efficacy for prevention.

Title: Re: Help with Migraines
Post by Charlotte on Apr 17^th, 2008, 10:33pm

Kudzu also helps w/migraine.

Charlotte

Title: Re: Help with Migraines
Post by nani on Apr 17^th, 2008, 10:42pm

on 04/17/08 at 22:33:27, Charlotte wrote:

Kudzu also helps w/migraine.

Charlotte

DOH! You're right, Char. It works well as a prevent.

Title: Re: Help with Migraines
Post by Opus on Apr 17^th, 2008, 10:42pm

Has he tried finding and eliminating triggers? I fortunately found I had some food triggers and eliminating them greatly reduced my Migraine attacks ( which since they are a CH trigger for me reduced my CH too).

Paul

Title: Re: Help with Migraines
Post by cash5542 on Apr 17^th, 2008, 11:06pm

I don't know which triptans he's tried but I have a long history of migraines with nothing being successful until I started using 40 mg of Relpax. It's a fairly new one and I LOVE it. I can actually work shortly after taking it. Normally I am in a dark room for 3 hrs minimum.

Lisa has been using Topomax for CH and in the meantime, migraines have gone away. She is oneof the lucky that doesn't suffer side effects or dopiness.

Paul is really acurate about checking foods. Chocolate can be a major trigger for me. It's worth checking it out.

Good luck!

Charlotte

Title: Re: Help with Migraines
Post by LeLimey on Apr 18^th, 2008, 4:09am

I've known people have a lot of success with feverfew which is a herbal type supplement. I know there are things you can't take it with so that needs to be checked up on.

My ex used to get horrific migraines, he could be inbed for a couple of days with it. We found more than anything else that the best preventative for him was regular mealtimes and regular patterns of sleep.

If he started missing meals through working silly hours or having more than a couple of late nights in a row you could guarantee he would get a migraine. Also, sleeping in on a weekend always made him get one, usually on the monday! It took a day or so for it to affect him.

I watched him closely and found by far and the best way to prevent them in the first place was to make sure he ate at regular times during the day and that he had a decent amount of sleep at night and got up at pretty much the same time every day. By doing that he went almost two years without an attack.

I hope that helps somewhat. It's something we should know alot more about given how many of our supporters here are migrainers. People like Ree and Deltadarlin for instance and several of us have migraines as well as CH such as Carrir/Lizzie2.

Thank you Brian, it's so nice for one of us to be able to help someone else with a different HA condition. All to often we see people with migraines here seeking help for ch'ers!

Good on you
Helen

Title: Re: Help with Migraines
Post by Jonny on Apr 18^th, 2008, 5:14am

http://www.migrainepage.com/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi

Title: Re: Help with Migraines
Post by HappyElaine on Apr 18^th, 2008, 7:54am

I suffer from the M word as well as clusters. I started on O2 for my clusters, guess what he has also aborted my Migraines within minutes. As far as preventive meds, I don't believe there are any such thing when it comes to headaches. Just my personal opinion. I also use Excedrin migraine at the first sign. I use Excedrin's Tension for the neck pain that comes with a migraine.
The secret to taking any meds is preventive and abortive is to take the meds as directed. Take the abortive meds as soon as you feel a sign they are coming on.
Read some of the post on the migrain board Jonny posted you might find a better answer there.
This is just what I do, I have found the o2 to work.

Title: Re: Help with Migraines
Post by deltadarlin on Apr 18^th, 2008, 8:18am

I'm with the others in that I don't think there is a *preventative* per say (at least I've never heard of one). I use Maxalt MLT and a muscle relaxer. One trick that I've found over a period of years, don't wait to take the abortive, even for a short period of time. *If* I give the migraine a chance to set in, it's on then and sometimes I end up having to *sleep* it off (and sometimes, even that doesn't work).

Title: Re: Help with Migraines
Post by Gator on Apr 18^th, 2008, 10:49am

Actually, there are preventatives for Migraines. Most of the meds we currently use for clusters are used because they did work for many people with migraines. As has been said before, we owe a lot to migraine research.

From the National Headache Foundation

http://www.headaches.org/education/Headache_Topic_Sheets/Migraine

Quote:

Preventive

If patients have frequent migraine attacks, if the attacks do not respond consistently to migraine specific acute treatments, or if the migraine specific medications are ineffective or contraindicated because of other medical problems, then preventive medications should be given to reduce the migraine frequency and improve the response to the acute migraine medicines. Cost considerations also may lead to increased use of preventive medications. The FDA has approved four drugs for migraine prevention. These include propranolol (Inderal®), timolol (Blocadren®), topiramate (Topamax®) and divalproex sodium (Depakote®). These have had many years of use and make up the majority of the items considered 'first line' therapy for migraine prevention. Amitriptyline, which is an antidepressant, may also be very effective as a migraine preventive. All migraine preventive medications require that adequate doses of the medicine be given for a sufficient length of time to determine the effectiveness. Titration of the doses may be needed to reduce adverse effects to medicines.

There are a host of alternative choices for patients whose headaches do not respond to the first line medications. These include calcium channel blockers, NSAIDs, a variety of antidepressants and several miscellaneous medications.

This is from MAGNUM, the Migraineur's version of OUCH.

http://www.migraines.org/treatment/treatctm.htm

Title: Re: Help with Migraines
Post by Karla on Apr 18^th, 2008, 10:55am

I found when I suffered from 8+ migraines a month that keeping a diary helped me identify triggers such as bananas and aspartame. Nothing worked to stop the ch or migraines except one thing. Botox!!! My dr said it may take a second dosing before results can be felt. I felt imediate results after the first dosing. I used this method every three to four months to stay pain free from migraines until I had my hysterectomy. When I had that done the migraines also stopped!! Yeah! Now I don't need botox anymore.

Title: Re: Help with Migraines
Post by BMoneeTheMoneeMan on Apr 18^th, 2008, 11:12am

You can get Kudzu at a GNC or other suppliment store?

Title: Re: Help with Migraines
Post by Charlotte on Apr 18^th, 2008, 11:36am

On line is good, and arrives pretty fast. I got mine at iHerb, but they stopped making the liquid form that helped and the other liquid forms and capsules don't work the same for me.

It may also have been sometimes when a person takes a break from kudzu, it doesn't always work the same next time.

I was odd in that I used kudzu first, and then added verapamil (low dose, w/doc's approval) and the verap did not work - but when the kudzu stopped working, the verap started working the next time I tried it.

Charlotte

Title: Re: Help with Migraines
Post by midwestbeth on Apr 18^th, 2008, 4:16pm

on 04/17/08 at 22:42:58, Opus wrote:

Has he tried finding and eliminating triggers?

That's where I would start. My migraine triggers were hormones, (nothing I can do there) not eating enough during the day and stress. I also found that chiropratic helped me. Triptans did nothing for my migraines.

As with ch, everyone who gets migraines has differnt triggers and finding out what they are can help lessen frequency and strength.

Beth