Looking For Help
My wife is in a migraine cycle and have run out of options. She has been hospitalized for two weeks over the last month and no one has answers. We are in the CT area. Does anyone have any recoomendations on where to look next?
Jefferson clinic? That's in Philadelphia, but there is a wait. What have you already tried? Does she have a headache specialist?
Preventatives
Botox
Injections
Nerve blocks
High dose of steriods
Fluids/magnesiumShe is meeting with the head doc at her headache specialist on Thursday. Hopefully he has some ideas on how to move forward. Nothing seems to be touching this headache cycle. It came out of no where. She has chronic migraines but usually can get out of a flair up, not this one.
You say fluids/magnesium, so I assume you mean an IV infusion. Do they ever give her anything else in the infusion besides fluids and magnesium? I also have intractable migraine. Sometimes I've had one that will go on for 6 weeks or two months (which sucks.) Usually, they just last five days to a week. The only thing that works for me is infusions. And when I'm in a really bad cycle, I have to get infusions multiple days in a row (I think the limit for safety at my infusion center for what I get is 3 daysin a row and then you have to take a break until you're a week from your start date, but your doctor can tell you more based on what your wife would be getting.) Anyway, I get depacon (valproate sodium), magnesium, fluids, and if it's bad, I also get DHE, zofran, and there's other stuff you can get like steroids and benadryl.
I don't know about your wife, whether she's going up and down, or it's just unrelenting and nothing is touching it, but my problem with a lot of the drugs they would try (like steroids, benadryl, triptans, painkillers) would be that they temporarily fix or improve the problem, but the rebound migraine they cause is even worse. But everyone is different. Her headache specialist would know best about her case and what would work best for you. I'm just throwing out ideas. I've read other clinics like Jefferson can give you infusions of other drugs (Katie Golden has written some great articles on it) that can help, too.
I also had to get myself completely out of any environment that could be providing triggers, which sucked. I'm guessing she's probably already doing that, though. Sorry this is happening.
She just got out of the hospital. Two stays in one month. She got iv infusion of reps on, steroids, Benadryl, zofran, mag, fluids.
She received dhe years ago. As soon as it entered her body she threw up for hours even with zofran. I'm not sure what is next.
You said some went five days and others up to six weeks of a migraine. What touch it and got the pain back to a manageable pain score?
