Migraine and Mertazapine

I've been a migraineur for around 30 years. I've tried all possible medications (with Zomig as my 'go to') from Ketamine therapy, medicinal marijuana, to Botox, and even Emgality but nothing else has been successful.

My miracle, yet, expensive drug

It's only been Zomig that has kept me able to function, work, etc. As it's such an expensive drug I've often joked about how I should have shares in the company as they must be making an absolute fortune.

In the last 10 years, my migraines have increased to become chronic (particularly when hitting perimenopause). I'm now 54. I recently got to a point where I was having daily migraine. Each day for years now has been overshadowed by thinking about and waiting to get a migraine and the many other negative impacts that I'm sure many migraine sufferers face. Despite being this unwell, I've managed to hold down a casual job but only mostly due to the fact that I had Zomig to rely on.

Was I addicted?

When I started taking Zomig daily I really began to worry about how this was impacting my health. After all, I've been told a number of times over the years that my migraines are due to drug overuse - but I found that the only medication that I couldn't come off was Zomig - all others, such as codeine, were easy for me to stop. I've also had the very odd week (over the years) where I didn't have a migraine so this made me question Zomig addiction as well.

I did some research and decided to try Mertazapine to see if this would help me stop Zomig. It took a couple of weeks to kick in as I started with a quarter of the lowest dose tablet until I was taking 15mg (the lowest dose). It seemed to knock my sleep around, but other than that I've also begun to experience whole weeks without a migraine?! I'm still adjusting to not thinking about and anticipating a migraine and have started to make myself do a bit of exercise again (which I tended to stop when having daily migraine).

My conclusions

After further exploration on the net, I can see that there is some research on Mirtazapine and neuropathic pain and the success that has been experienced by people with continuous or frequent pain, such as fibromyalgia and chronic migraine, etc. I was given Amitriptyline by my neurologist a number of years ago and this made a very small difference but there were way too many negative side effects to keep using it.

However, I was never offered Mirtazapine by my neurologist even though the side effects are very few and milder compared to Amitriptyline? I now wonder why? But, although my sleep is still a bit of an issue (most people find it helps sleep but it is the opposite for me) my migraines seemed to have dropped from daily to once per fortnight and are not as bad as they were.

So, I'll keep going and keep my fingers crossed with this medication as it has made a huge difference to my overall health so far. I hope that this story might help someone else who may benefit from trying Mirtazapine as well.