Daily Headaches
Hello everyone,
My name is Ken and I have suffered from headaches which led to migraines for probably over 30 yrs now. As I've gotten older, they seem to have become more frequent. I get a headache almost every other day. What I have noticed is that around 3-4 am in the am, my headache will wake me out of my sleep. When I go to bed, my head is not hurting but for some odd reason, in the wee hrs of the morning is when the problems begin. Right now, I'm literally taking Naratriptan & Indomethacin every other day. I only get a 10 day supply of the Naratriptan with each refill so because my insurance will only pay for it 1x per month, I have to pay the full cost for the other refills. My neuro said that I may be eligible for Amovig, which I've heard positive things about. Has anyone taken Amovig and its been effective?
Hello Ken! Welcome to the migraine.com community. We are glad you're here. Early morning headaches can be pretty miserable, but they are not uncommon for many of us. You are not alone. Thirty years is a long time to live with the burden of migraine. Is your doctor a headache/migraine specialist? There are also several possible reasons to be haunted by those early morning headache episodes. Have you been checked for sleep apnea yet? It is a common comorbidity with migraine disease. Many people have had good results with the CGRP class of drugs like Aimovig, Emgality, and Ajovy. Take some time to look at the side effects profile for any drug you may consider, and always speak with your doctor so all your questions can be addressed. Many combination therapies can be used to help manage migraine and other headache conditions. I'll leave you with a couple of links with some information that you may find helpful. Thank you for taking the time to post here. We are here for your support whenever you need us! Warmly, Cheryl migraine.com team
https://migraine.com/clinical/cgrp-similar-different
https://migraine.com/expert/three-causes-early-morning-headache
https://migraine.com/living-migraine/aimovig-experiences
I started Aimovig 16 months ago. My insurance won't pay for it but I was able to financially qualify for free injections through the Amgen Safety Net Foundation. My neurologist was great, helping me go through the process of fighting with the insurance company and applying with Amgen. By getting Aimovig free, it allows my neurologist to also give me Botox injections. Between the two of those, and wearing my binasal occlusion glasses, my migraines were cut in half. Before those changes, I had 24-28 days of migraine per month. Now I only have 7-14 days per month. They gave me half of my life back. Having had migraines for 58 years, my neurologist wasn't sure what would happen for me because drug companies don't use long term sufferers in their tests, so he asked me to commit to a full year no matter what the results were. He was wise to do that because it took over a year before we saw any noticable improvement. So since you're a long term migraines too, if you start on Aimovig, be sure to commit yourself for at least a year before you pass judgement. Good luck!
