Breaking Rebound Patterns
Does anyone know how long it takes from Imitrex to wear off or leave your body?
I'm in the process of breaking a bad rebound pattern and have noticed a new pattern. As I've reduced my consumption, my migraines have decreased.
I average about once a week now (as opposed to running out of pills each month) and have noticed that I always have a follow up mid-day headache the day after taking an Imitrex.
If I ride this headache out, I wake up fine the next day and have several consecutive migraine free days.
The migraines I've had lately are also less severe - though it's hard to say if that's from less Imitrex, improved sleep/diet, luck or some combination of everything.
I'm wondering what I'm going through physiologically as I ween myself from sustained triptan usage?
Carolyn,
Imitrex has a very short half-life of just 2.5 hours, so it's out of your body within 24 hours. BUT, that doesn't mean that it only takes 24 hours to break a rebound cycle. Breaking that cycle generally can't be accomplished by reducing usage. It would generally take no triptan usage at all for some period of time.
Teri
Does that mean one can substitute something else to abort the migraine? Can I break the triptan rebound cycle using soemthing else without creating a new rebound cycle? How can I get off this rollercoaster? How bad is it to "ride it out" and let the full hammer hit? I thought I read this was not a good idea. Any thoughts?
Hi arden, Unfortunately, they found that alternating medicines only perpetuates the problem. What some physicians will do is get their patients on a preventive before slowly weaning off the medicine. That said, others prefer to ask their patients to simply go cold turkey. Talking it out with your doctor is probably your best bet, as they know your full medical history.
Hi I am in my first day not taking sumatriptan horrible headache rebound day 5 just can’t take the medicine anymore
