Migraine Miracle

It started with bad vomiting, then the pain, too bad to call a "headache". It was more like having my head bashed in with a sledgehammer. No type of pain medication worked. None of the mirgraine medications worked. A night spent at the hospital getting IV pain meds never touched the pain. I read about triggers and none of them seem to have any affect on me. They were becoming more and more constant. Finally I was referred to a headache specialist. He tried me on one preventative medication after another. None of them worked.

Then I noticed after he put me on a medication as a last desparate attempt. I began to notice a decline in the head beatings that led to the vomiting, going to bed and crawling down to the end to escape the slightet bit of light and the feeling of being about to die from the pain. This last medication was causing these experiences to cease. I had been on it for several weeks. I felt like I had my life back. I have never heard of another person on this medication for migraine prevention.

Yet it worked. Thhis medication, Verapamil or the generic, I can't recall what it was was the miracle for me. It's been several years and for some reason it seems like the generic worked best, which is odd. It may have been the other way around.

I was on this medication for years. It may not work for everyone yet it leads me to believe that out there is something, some type of preventaive med for everyone. Perhaps it takes a doctor who is knowledgable enough to try different medications. I sill had one every once and awhile with this medication; the other amazing thing is that they weren't quite as severe and when I did get one since taking this medicine, I could take an Imitrex and it was effective. I learned the hard way, though, that Imitrex makes me very sick to my stomach so much that I had to take something for nausea a little before or at least along with it.

I have multiple sclerosis I later learned. Around the time I first had symptoms there was a story circulating the internet that claimed the nutra-sweet caused MS. I completely cut nutra-sweet out of my diet. This has to be done with caution because it is in a lot of foods and drinks you wouldn't expect. I read ingrediants of everything. I didin't touch the stuff for 6 months. It did nothing for my neurological symptoms, but I didn't have a single migraine while on it. I didn't think about it until one day I gave up on the MS theory and drank a diet coke. Not long after I developed a migraine.

After years of trying to figure out what a trigger for me was, trying all manner of preventative meds, which I finally did find, and being hospitalized and given the strongest pain meds that exist with no result, I accidently discovered my trigger.

So Verapamil was the miracle preventative medication. Nutra-sweet was my "hidden trigger". Today I'm not on preventaitve meds, maybe I outgrew them. I don't drink nutra-sweet still and have a migraine sometimes, but not anything like those earlier ones. I can take an Imitrex when I do, along with something presecribed for nausea and it take care of it. I now have another type of headache and they are easily discerable. A migraine ressonds to imitrex but no other type of pain meidication; the other headaches don't respond to Imitrex but to other pain medications. They are different in type of pain, and location so it's easyt o tell what

A lot of people think they have migraines when they have other types of headaches. It's imortant to determine if what your having really are migraines; headaches can be bad if they aren't migraines, it's just that treatment approache will be different. Not every head ache is a migraine. Some ways to tell are if they have light sensitivity, nausea and/or vomiting, auora, numbness and other symptoms along with them.

If its dtermined that you do have migraines, don't give up trying to get them under control. Don't be quick to take a doctor's word that theres nothing that can dome for one. I had to go without nutra-sweet a long time. I had to go through tons of preventative meds. I suffered for years before these "miracles for me were discovered.

Don't give up, don''t let them ruin your life; Do your own research, learn all you can. You can beat them.