Posted by Bev S. (24.26.228.166) on January 16, 2000 at 01:47:06:
In Reply to: Butalbitol as possible relief posted by Patrick McGrath on January 14, 2000 at 22:53:32:
Hi there,
I wanted to make sure that everyone noticed that the first post in this series made it clear that there was a version of Fiorinal with and without Codiene. Someone else responded with a reply about addiction but didn't say whether the drug he was refering to was the one with codeine, the other or both versions.
So far as chronic, daily usage, I've met several people who benefitted from this as a treatment choice. One dosage I recall was 6 per day, with codeine and the person expereinced no ill effects. (This is all just ancedotal but gives you and idea of what you might bring up as a part of your own treatment plan should it come to that.)
One person who responded to this thread suggested that Verapamil be used for preventing heart problems when using these drugs in a chronic manner. I wondered what the mechanism for this was as Verapamil is a blood pressure drug.
I personally am on a course of three Bellergal per day (along with intrathecal spinal pump delivering hydromorphone, fentanyl and oral oxycontin) and my head still manages to hurt evey day :-( Anyway, the point is that Bellergal is an ergotamine and that I'm taking these daily for months now without any concern having been expressed for my heart or monitoring of my heart. This would certainly be up to individual physicians, I just wanted to let people know that it was possible.
So far as the effectiveness of the Fiorinal taken early, before the onset of headache pain to allow for oral absorption, that would make sense as being the way that most abortives work--if I recall right that its an abortive, I tried it early on and it wasn't that effective. I'm still doing what I was before which includes oxygen and a lot of water and I'm holding steady which I am grateful. I've got a mixed up mess with my headaches. The other day I had one that pretty much qualified as a cluster but with the way things are usually I have a chronic headache and I had classical migraine mixed in with other features that we say are cluster like.
Thanks,
Bev