Imagine a long string of obscenities~ I am out of my imitrix pills and pharmacy is closed. I went to bed with one after taking an alternative
migraine med. I awoke several times during the night, no relief, at 5:00 AM I took an Imitrix shot. I was free of pain within 20 minutes or so and slept till 10:00. I have an an aura since I awoke and it’s after 2:00PM and it’s coming on strong. I only have one shot left till tuesday. Now I have to figure, do I take it now and pray I don’t have another one, wait and save it till it’s unbearable. Put myself to sleep and try to sleep it off. My life is controlled by these stupid headaches. How many events and social occasions have I missed due to a migraine. How often have people felt I was stand offish or even rude because I left early or worse didn’t go. Seems no one really understands the pain. People with what I call a normal headache call them migraines. Then when I say i have a migraine they think it’s like theirs. Very little sympathy with these headaches.
I can tell a good nurse when I show up in an emergency room and they dim the lights and give me a warmed blanket while I wait for the dr. and some meds.
The most beautiful days are missed because the sun is shinning and the light triggers a migraine. Social settings and someone wears perfume and it triggers a migraine, An athletic event and the temperature turns cold or hot and it triggers a migraine. And the worst ones when a front moves through and the barometric pressure drops - WOW those are murder!!!
And there were the hormonal ones, now I’ve had a radical hysterectomy and those don’t happen. WHEEE!!! And of course the ones from emotionally upsetting situations. FREQUENT
It’s frustrating, and painful.
I hate migraines
How do you feel about them
Do the tens units stop the migraines if they have already started, or do you wear them all the time? How do you use them? Do you wear them on the back of your neck?
well, my doctor used both: the tens (which I also have) and the regular needles.
Dubltrubl migraines-cpt5793@lists.careplace.com wrote:
I feel the same way, I hate them. They ruin my life constantlly, yet people who don’t get them dont’ ever seem to understand them. I am tired of going to the doc and having to feel like I am some kind of drug seeker ever time i get a migraine, just to get some relief. I do ever thing they tell me and it still doesn’t work. I can’t tell you how many times I have comtemplated suicide just I just have on so bad and i don’t have any medicine and no place to go. I get tired of trying, tired to going to dr.'s and to hospitals where no one really cares.
Worst of all, i hate looking of and seeing a beautiful day, people laughing because they feel so good, and they feel like that every day.
I agree with you…I have been battling my latest migraine for 2 day’s now and I even missed my oldest daughter’s choir concert tonight because of it. I used to have a good paying job while I was there my migraines started more freguently and stronger so I was put on FMLA by my doctor…well after a while my bosses and some of the people I worked with thought I was faking it because it was getting to the point that I was missing atleast 2 day’s a week. They made my life a living hell until it got to the point I just couldn’t take it anymore and I quit.
My husband work’s 3rd shift and I have to pick up all the slack with the house and the kid’s…it’s hard to do with this condition. I don’t know how but I seem to do it because if I don’t nothing would get done, I get help from no-one. There are 5 people in this house and at times I still feel completly alone.
~hope you are feeling well, Christinahas anyone of you tried acupuncture? I didn’t believe it works at first, until I tried it and now I am almost migraine free.
Laura
Laura Balbuena
“I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute.” – Rebecca West, 1913
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Yes!! I work in a doctors office and one of our docs does
acupuncture!! I was ready to give up on my day because I had a really
bad migraine that was going away with my other treatments. She
offered to let me be a “guinea pig” and I couldn’t believe how well it
worked. I was migraine free for 2 months!!! Though they are back,
she offers the treatment for me as an alternative if all else fails!!
On 10/16/07, lalibg migraines-cpt5793@lists.careplace.com wrote:
I have heard that this method work’s but insurance doesn’t pay for it, so there for I can’t pay for it either. I hope it does continue to work for you though.
I hope everyone is having a good day
~Christinawell, my doctor is also a pain manager. So, he was charging it as a pain manager and not as an “alternative” doctor. Therefore, my insurance paid for it (they never knew they were paying for acupuncture sesions).
Laura
angeleyes46711 migraines-cpt5793@lists.careplace.com wrote:
haven’t tried acupuncture. I get my treatment at a VA Hospital. I have a TENS
unit (electrical stimulation of the nerves). I think it is Western medicine’s
version of acupuncture. I use it for arthritis in my neck that causes
inflammation in the spinal column nerves. I had migraines long before the
arthritis. So I don’t believe the arthritis is the original cause. Yet, I wonder
if the TENS unit can help treat the migraines.
–
Shalom,
Chuck
BonBon wrote:
Do the tens units stop the migraines if they have already started, or
do you wear them all the time? How do you use them? Do you wear
them on the back of your neck?
Yesterday I used my TENS unit for the first time as a test to stop a
migraine already started. The migraine was gone in less than an hour.
Did the TENS unit do the trick? Maybe.
In the past to treat arthritis in my neck I used the TENS unit daily for
a couple of hours. It relieved the pain and eventually the irritated
nerve stopped. I hadn’t used the TENS unit for a few months since my
neck hadn’t bothered me.
I place the electrodes on either side of my spinal column just below the
neck as I was instructed. I probably should use the TENS unit for
arthritis in my shoulder sockets, but my therapists haven’t suggested it
and I tolerate the pain for now. The pain doesn’t interfere with using
my arms and it is more sharp stabs than a continuous ache as my neck
was. Of course, the migraines come with 28 flavors.
I take 75 milligrams of lamotrigine (Lamactil) in the morning and 50
milligrams at bedtime. It has reduced the frequency and intensity of my
migraines, but has not eliminated them completely. I started with 25
milligrams twice a day and increased the dose over the past year until
my current level. My neurologist recommended up to 75 milligrams twice a
day.
I run a bit - currently 3 to 6 miles in road races on weekends and 3 to
5 miles 3 or 4 times a week. At 64 and recovering from two bouts of
Cancer I am a Peter Rabbit runner (lippity lippity not very fast). When
I first started taking lamotrigine I had trouble getting out of the
house and running. I lost my motivation for more than a year and thought
about giving it up completely. During the past 6 months it has been
better. For me the lamotrigine is the latest attempt to control my
migraines after 15 years of going from one drug to another. The best
treatment I had was 2500 milligrams of Ibuprofen to stop a migraine. But
my gastroenterologist got really upset when he learned I was taking it
because my esophagus was bleeding all the time from acid reflux.
I certainly wouldn’t recommend lamotrigine. Even my neurologist told me
it can cause a nasty rash that could be fatal. He also told me that the
rash usually starts in the first month.
I take several other drugs mostly because of my Cancer treatments. I
wouldn’t have any idea what the interactions might be except that
together they have kept me alive 10 years beyond my due date. For the
first time in 10 years I finished a road race in 310th place and ahead
of 490 other runners. Most races over the past 10 years I finished in
the last 10%.
I will try to follow up with my experiences using the TENS unit for
future migraines.
Shalom,
Chuck
Thanks Chuck. I have access to a TENS unit, and have tried everything else, so I think i will give it a try my next migraine and see if I get any relief from it at all. You just never know.
Sounds like your doing great in the running, contratulations!~ Keep it up and do what you can, it keeps ya movin!
Bon
Where do you place the pads for the TENS unit, to get rid of migraines?
Thanks!
Sue
Yesterday I used my TENS unit for the first time as a test to stop a
migraine already started. The migraine was gone in less than an hour.
Did the TENS unit do the trick?
Maybe. I plan to try it a few more times. I can only offer anecdotal evidence. It may not work for anyone else and something other than the TENS may be the cause of the relief.
I place the electrodes on either side of my spinal column just below the
neck as I was instructed.
I do not recommend anyone using a TENS without professional advice on proper use.
Shalom,
Chuck
I’ll have to try that.
Sue
On Friday I used the TENS unit for the 2nd time. The migraine was worse by Saturday morning. I took 2 Zomig during the day and it lessened the pain, but didn’t stop it. Saturday night I put Biofreeze on my forehead (our pharmacist told me that his wife puts Ben-Gay on her forehead). By Sunday morning I felt fine.
I won’t use Ben-Gay because I had a 2nd degree chemical burns from it years ago. I get free samples of Biofreeze nearly every time I run a weekend road race and I put it on my sore legs.
I haven’t given up on the TENS unit and I plan to experiment in the future with the Biofreeze, too.
The nice - not - thing about migraines is we get lots of chances to try different things.
Shalom,
Chuck
That’s very true. I have never heard of the BioFreeze, or the bengay or whatever on the forehead. and your right, about the getting, unfortuetately changes to try things.
I have a very, very bad one now. I have taken some Stadol nosespray and I am at work trying to act like nothing is wrong and make it through the day because I cannot go home, no way, no how. I WAS going to stay home, but darn it, my husband beat me to it, he woke up throwing up, having sweats, and generally sick and with a migraine so he stayed home, yes this is the second DAY for him. So here I am.
Anyways, lets keep trudging on and have a nice day.
omg i hate them to and when i get them all i do is sleep they are just terrable.
I have a very short temper…My oldest daughter graduated this year, well of course I woke up the morning of her graduation with a full blown migraine. I took my med.s and laid in front of the toilet getting sick just hoping it would calm down enough so I could make it to her graduation. It did but after I got home from the graduation I hit the bed for the rest of the day because it was starting to come back. It’s so upsetting that I almost missed something in mine and my daughter’s life that is so important and once missed you can never get it back. I have to carry all of my medication with me where-ever I go just incase.
no-one that doesn’t get these migraines just do not understand; at my old job alot of people that I worked with thought I was faking it just so I could skip work and go home. Doctor’s make you their test monkey’s with all the medication. I am on my 3rd differant medication(pills), I have had cortizone shots in my head to try and numb that nerve along the right side of my head, because that’s the side of my head I feel all my migraines, of course they worked for about a week or two then they came right back so I stopped having that done. I found out the hard way that I am alergic to Imitrex so I can’t take that.