Posted by MIKE L (216.160.236.247) on August 10, 2000 at 01:16:30:
Although I usually come on about how sucessful my opiate treatments have been I do not think they are the only or best way to go for many. I have been very fortunate with having 2 great Doctors.First My Neurologist Dr. Phillip Savia from Salt Lake Headache Clinic. He approaches everything very systematicly and thouroghly. He uses a tape recorder after each appt. and has it trascribed to my records. He tries each Med. For at least 4-8 weeks raising dosages accordingly ie. Verapimal,Lithium,Depakote and so on. (He does not do opiate treatments). Then he uses combinations the same way. He was relentless with me. Sure it takes a lot of patience but leaves few stones unturned. It would be the pits to quit a med when maybe just a higher doage will work. He was almost always able to give me some decent relief in the frequency of my attacks. He would listen to anything I gave him off the web. Anyway I was lucky I know that some of the non-opiate methods are quit effective. After exhausting a lot of methods he refered me to a Pain clinic that use opiates. Dr Lynn Webster from Alpine Pain Medicine would not even consider opiate therapy without my trying most of the other treatments. Both Drs. actually worked together for the first year on everything we did. It just happened that opiate treaments have given me the longest relief from my Cluster attacks and severe migraines. I do not think of opiates as a first choice. Just as a choice. There are risks to all medications some more severe then others. I have had some very wild experiances with depakote and a combination of others meds. Anyway I'm not a hard core "Opiate Proponent". It is just great to have a group like this THANKS for reading this long post. MIKE L