Posted by Annie (143.52.2.80) on December 06, 2000 at 12:49:01:
In Reply to: Husband in big chronic trouble posted by peni on December 05, 2000 at 18:59:31:
This combination is definitely worth trying - it often seems to work when the individual drugs don't. My husband started it recently after a period of 4 years chronic with up to 8 attacks a day at its worst. He had been taking lithium for a while because it did seem to work briefly, but verapamil on its own didn't work - perhaps the dose wasn't high enough. Anyway, he added Verapamil to the lithium and the attacks stopped almost immediately! It may be a coincidence of course. The dose of Verapamil (instant release - NOT slow release) is 1 x 80mg tablet twice a day, or 160mg in total. The lithium dose is 2 x 200 slow release lithium daily and his lithium blood level is about 0.7 at the last check (it's the individual blood level which is important rather than the dose). So both lithium and Verapamil are quite low, though as he was already taking lithium his blood level had already built up, so maybe that's why the Verapamil then worked quickly at a relatively low dose (unless it's all a coincidence). Another thing that might help is Naraptriptan (Amerge) tablets - a number of people have written to say this worked well as both a preventative and an acute treatment. There are a number of other things to try but maybe the simplest to try first is adding Verapamil to the lithium as your husband is already taking lithium. Good luck and keep in touch!