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        New Message Board Archives >> Medications, Treatments, Therapies 2003 >> cafergot??? anybody???
        
(Message started by: Nathan on Sep 8^th, 2003, 8:54am)

Title: cafergot??? anybody???
Post by Nathan on Sep 8^th, 2003, 8:54am

hello people, anybody miss me? i think my neuro is trying to pull a fast one on me can anybody help prove or discredit my theory? i was on neurontin (some may remember) and it wasnt working well enough to put up with the side effects so i asked my neuro to put me on something else (keep in mind were running out of options) so he put me on cafergot... supposedly a med for migranes. i thought that was strange to begin with since he knows i have clusters. so today i did a check on the med at www.rxlist.com and the first name that popped up was verapamil. are they one and the same? some kind of variant? i told my current neuro that i had tried verap once before, got a massiave attack on the first dose and never tried it again. now im on the cafergot and i get a mild attack pretty much daily and one really good attack about an hour after i take the med, just like i did with the verap. is there a connection or am i just seeing another conspiracy where there isnt one? thanks for listening and its good to be back (well, you know what i mean)..... lol!

Title: Re: cafergot??? anybody???
Post by floridian on Sep 8^th, 2003, 10:10am

Cafergot is very different from verapamil in terms of its chemical structure and basic activity.

Verapamil is thought of primarily as a calcium channel blocker. Cafergot has ergotamine, which acts first on the serotonin system.

Title: Re: cafergot??? anybody???
Post by Smurf on Sep 8^th, 2003, 12:53pm

Floridian is correctomundo. They are different. I use to be on cafergot for attacks. Take 1 at on-set, then if need be 1 every 1/2 hour. Many times I cheated and didn't wait the full 1/2 hour. I think we can all relate to that ("if it kills me, so what, then no more HA").
Hope it works for you!
-Smurf

Title: Re: cafergot??? anybody???
Post by Cooked Brain on Sep 8^th, 2003, 2:52pm

cafergot is astrong ergotamine med, bound to do well but you can't take it longer than 6 months.

hope it works for you!

Title: Re: cafergot??? anybody???
Post by Nathan on Sep 8^th, 2003, 4:21pm

boy im glad i posted this!! i also called the drug store and they said also that its not the same as verap, and the same as you guys, its used for onset treatment. so can someone explain to me why my neuro has me taking 3 tabs a day with 3 refills remaining on the prescription? this guy trying to kill me or what????

Title: Re: cafergot??? anybody???
Post by Cooked Brain on Sep 8^th, 2003, 6:59pm

for what I know from my two week experience with ergotamine (deseril) and the reading i have done on this med the usual dose is between 2-4 mg a day, for a maximum period of 6 months which should be followed by a stop for at least a month. It is a strong med that can cause some heavy side effects.

it was highly effective on fast prevention of my CH for about two weeks, when I switched to verapamil CH and shadows returned for about a week, then a week of shadows and after two weeks and the right dose the verapamil kicked in and is doing the job just as well but with far less disturbing side-effects.

good luck, be well and I hope it kills the beast for you!

Title: Re: cafergot??? anybody???
Post by Lone_Wolf_FLA on Sep 8^th, 2003, 10:10pm

Nathan

I have had this particular "blessing" (CH) for nearly 26 years. During that time I've taken just about everything and anything that was even rumored to help. Cafergot is the only thing that ever got me through my cycles. Oddly, Imitrex and I don't mix, though it was wonderful for the few days it did work.

Your Doc should get real jerky after about six months of a steady diet of Cafergot. Though that will change once he/she knows your ability to tolerate it. I can eat the stuff like candy for nearly a year, no problem. You might go into ergot posioning in half that time, with half the dose. My cafergot dose instruction says simply:

"Take as Directed."

I get many questions from the Pharmacy about that. My Doc tells them I've been taking it longer, and know more about it than he does, so just refill it when he comes in.

It is NOT a preventitive, taking it like one will do nothing for you. I hope it works for you as well as it has for me these many years.

Title: Re: cafergot??? anybody???
Post by judyw on Sep 9^th, 2003, 7:48am

;D Nathan, is that you, where have you been ??? Ah, maybe I don't want to know.... ::)...Good info given on the meds...something else to note, though...being the strange characters we CHers are, experience has taught me that sometimes with new meds, CH hits harder for a bit, before accepting that we might be on to something...

Title: Re: cafergot??? anybody???
Post by Cooked Brain on Sep 9^th, 2003, 9:19am

thank you judy ;D

Title: Re: cafergot??? anybody???
Post by Roxy on Sep 9^th, 2003, 10:38am

Nathan, my doctor had me on cafergot as a preventative, I was taking it twice a day along with verap. I was also using a lot of trex. When I read that you really shouldn't mix the cafergot and the trex, I stopped the cafergot. I would still take it every now and then for shadows, and it worked really well on the shadows.

You might give verapamil a try again, it takes it a little while to kick in, and then you have to work to get your dosage adjusted to the right level.

PFDAN,
Tracey

Title: Re: cafergot??? anybody???
Post by Bob P on Sep 9^th, 2003, 12:30pm

The "normal" dosing on cafergot, from the PDR, is one tablet at onset and one each 1/2 hour until the headache subsides. Not more than 6 per attack or 10 per week.

It's the ten per week that usually puts us clusterheads over the dosage. My doc freaks, saying I'll get ergotism, lose the circulation in my extremities and get gangreene. I take it 20-30 tabs a week anyway. The worst I get are cold fingers and toes from reduced circulation.

Some docs do use it as a preventative, prescribing one tablet twice a day.

The 6 month usage and then a holiday refers to Sansert, which is also an ergot derivative but not the same as cafergot.

Title: Re: cafergot??? anybody???
Post by Cooked Brain on Sep 9^th, 2003, 1:11pm

Quote:

You might give verapamil a try again, it takes it a little while to kick in, and then you have to work to get your dosage adjusted to the right level.

verapamil ROCKS

;D