alecjasonn, I too have chronic migraines. I take Topamax to prevent them, which does work (it reduced the number of times I get them from 2-3 a week to 2-3 a month) but it makes me dumb as a rock and I have heard there are better things out there, such as Zonegran. As soon as my insurance issue is fixed, I am going to speak to my neurologist about switching to something else...although of course it takes MONTHS to get an appointment with her, sigh. I also struggled with finding the right migraine medicine that worked for me. For a long time I was on Fioricet, which worked perfectly, but it was HIGHLY addictive and I started to abuse it, which makes no sense to me now because the high was brief and fleeting. The only excuse I can come up with was that my life was SHIT at the time (I had the WORST post partum depression EVER. For like well over a year. I self medicated like crazy because I wasn't even AWARE of how depressed and messed up I was.) Anyway. After that I tried Maxalt - nope. Tried Zomeg - nope. THEN I was prescribed Relpax, and that worked like a CHARM. Relpax 40 mg worked for me. Then my insurance stopped covering it, and I was switched to Imitrex. Imitrex would only work 50% of the time and the other 50% of the time I would be lying in a darkened room, eye mask on, hearing aids out, cold washcloth on my forehead, praying for it to go away. Or for death, whichever came first. THEN I went on the Relpax website and they have a card you can apply for where your prescription of Relpax will only cost you $10 out of pocket. I was OVERJOYED. So I got that and went back to Relpax and we all lived Happily Ever After. Once in a blue moon, though, I do have a migraine that NOTHING will touch (what my neurologist has me do is try the Relpax first, one dose of that, a second dose 2 hours later, then try the Imitrex, of which I still have a TON, and if THAT doesn't work, she will call in 6 pills of Tylenoll 3. She is an ANGEL, especially considering that I abused her trust in the past with the Fioricet. But I've been with her a long time and I never call for the T3s more than twice a year, I wouldn't do that to her. She's so nice!)
Basically: you need to find a GOOD doctor, one who will work with you, and then try out different meds until you find the one that works. DON'T ask for opiate meds. For one thing, there's usually a rebound headache when you take those, and for another, you'll look like you're drug seeking (cuz you ARE.) There are plenty of non-opiate migraine meds that DO work and I hope you find your perfect match! Good luck to you.
Hey, everybody, I just wanted to update on my situation and ask for some help. I'm back in Brooklyn, trying to work things out with my husband. Today is the 10th anniversary of the day we met, so we're trying to make it a little bit special so we can remember why we are still together in spite of everything that has happened. We DO have many things in common, I still love him, he still loves me, we just have SHIT communication skills, and I'm a deaf bipolar addict with terrible anxiety and migraines, and he's a deaf jobless ADHD generally oblivious guy, so many times we have these really bad issues. We work together really well as parents, though, we agree almost 100% on parenting and in front of the children we are ALMOST always united (there have been ONE or two times when we disagreed in front of them but we agree that's not a good thing to do and even if we disagree we try to do that in private and present a united face to the children 99.99999% of the time.) So with parenting, we've got this. It's just that all the other aspects of our marriage are on life support. But I understand from talking to older and wiser couples that that can be typical of parents of very young children...the marriage suffers the most during the times when your children are the youngest and need you the most. So if we can weather these storms we might be ok. We were doing pretty good for a while because we had couples' therapy, but then our insurance lapsed, so...if/when we get it back, both of us agree that weekly couples therapy would be a GREAT thing for our whole family, because even little Davey can sense the tension between us two.
Why am I writing this novel in THIS forum? Well...before this, Simon (hubby) was managing my pain meds for me, because as a former Xanax addict and former (and very rarely sometimes currently) recreational drug user, I do not trust myself with strong medication. So he would hide them somewhere in his office (the office is in the house, he works from home) and he would give them to me as prescribed or as needed. He was fairly understanding and liberal with handing them out so I never had a problem with this, and I never ran out early because he made sure I had enough to last to my next prescription. But he recently told me he doesn't want to do that anymore because he "doesn't want to get involved." And I've tried to manage it myself, but I'm doing a really bad job. I do use it only as needed for pain, but the problem is I have a LOT of pain, so when I feel like I'm dying I pop them LIBERALLY. REALLY liberally. I'm going to run out in a week if I keep going on this way. Well, not a WEEK, but you know what I mean. It's not for recreational use AT ALL. I get no high from them. Just being out of pain is high enough. But being in SO MUCH pain makes me not think straight. I think, MORE, NOW, FASTER, JUST WORK GODDAMMIT. So I take 3 where really 1 would do. And I can't seem to stop myself. I NEED to come up with a plan to STOP USING UP MY MEDICINE LIKE THIS. I need to make it last and I need to figure out a way to restrain myself or else I just can't use these meds. I don't know what to do. The pain just takes over my body, my mind, every shred of rational thinking is gone. I don't know what to do. I need a taper plan, or maybe something that will speed up how fast the pills hit me so just one will hit fast and then I won't take more, or some way to taper down, or a potentiation plan, something, I don't know. Can anybody give me any advice? I don't want to go on like this. And NO I'm not giving them to my in-laws, they are insane and don't think I should be taking the meds in the first place. They have NO IDEA how much pain I'm in. If I weren't taking some kind of opiate, I would be lying in bed screaming at the top of my lungs til my voice gave out, and even then my whole body would still be tense, me gripping the bedsheets, trying to scream except nothing coming out. THAT kind of pain.
Again, apologies for the tome I just wrote.
