One Misfortune Leads To A Partial Victory

I’m a 68-year-old male and have been suffering from migraines for about 35 years. It seems like they have gotten worse over the past 5 years. I had been taking florinal for the past 25 years but had to stop because of medication overuse.

Seeing a neurologist for migraine

So about 4 years ago I finally made an appointment with a neurologist and he prescribed sumatriptan which has been working well when taken at the onset of a migraine and also put me on a preventative medication called Gabapentin because I was getting about 4 to 6 migraines a month.

Migraine and getting my vaccine

So as I was going about living my life I decided to get my Covid-19 vaccine in January. I got the second of the Pfizer shot in February and then about 10 days later I started feeling terrible. After the second day, I made it to the local prompt care physician to be tested for Covid. Both tests came back negative and they sent me home. A few days later I became winded and out of breath. I made arrangements to go see my primary doctor and they did two more COVID tests and a chest X-ray.

Tested negative for COVID

The COVID tests came back negative but the X-ray showed pneumonia in one lung. I was given an antibiotic and was told that if I didn’t improve in a couple of days to go to the hospital. So in two days, I went to the hospital and the doctors there discovered I had two pulmonary embolisms in each lung. No physician would say that they thought it was from the vaccine but this is when the clotting issues were just starting to make the news. I’m sorry for rambling on here but the bottom line is that they started me on Eliquis (blood thinner) that day and I’ve had one headache since then, about 8 weeks. I know I’ll be on the eliquis for 6 months or longer so my neurologist decided to take me off the preventative medication for now.

Blood thinners and migraine

I had never read any articles about blood thinners being able to reduce migraines not that anyone would want to purposely take a blood thinner for that but since I do have to take them , I’m certainly thrilled at my surprise that they have drastically reduced my migraines.