Posted by pinksharkmark (64.32.116.56) on August 18, 2001 at 16:16:57:
In Reply to: imitrex pill vs. shots posted by Scott on August 18, 2001 at 15:47:34:
I have no idea why your doctor would make such a ridiculous statement. An intramuscular injection will ALWAYS be faster than a pill. What a weenie.
As for the pills... I didn't even know that 50 mg pills existed till I heard about them on this board... I thought they always came in 100 mg.
I have only ever tried the injectors once. I got one as a gift once, and they are wonderful! I have no insurance and pay full price for all my meds. I can only afford the pills. Even at that, my last cycle bankrupted me.
I have found that the pills work just fine... IF you take them at the VERY FIRST warning twinge. At the beginning of a cycle, I can make do with half of a 100 mg pill. At the peak times, I need a whole one, but even then I always split the pill in two so the crumbly inner stuff is exposed. This gives much faster absorption. I know, I know... the instructions say not to crush them or split them, but whoever wrote that instruction is an idiot. Every second counts when it comes to dealing with The Beast.
If you take them as I described, the first effect of the Imitrex will hit in about fifteen minutes. Since I usually get about ten minutes warning that one is on the way, I rarely get much above level 7 out of 10 before the Imitrex kicks in, so I only have to deal with 5 or 10 minutes of bad pain.
Note that this procedure only works if you are awake when the first warning twinge comes. If I am awakened out of a sound sleep with a CH, it will ratchet all the way up to a 10 and stay there for about 40 minutes or an hour, sometimes even longer, before the Imitrex gets a grip on it. I have trained myself to be a very light sleeper for just this reason.
If injections were the same price, there is no question I would take the injectors over the pills, but the pills are not nearly as useless as a lot of people make them out to be.
A side note... many people swear by the nasal inhalers. I got twelve of them for my last cycle, thinking that the extra expense would be justified by the quicker reaction time over the pills. For some odd reason, they barely work for me at all. Took longer than the pills to kick in, didn't kill the pain completely when they DID finally kick in, and allowed the pain to return after only two hours, vs. 4 to 6 hours for the pills. I was hugely disappointed.
Note that I seem to be in the minority with this reaction... as I say, dozens of people love the inhalers. Just one of those inexplicable cluster quirks, I guess.
pinky