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Why is it working? Help in Diagnosis

Hi everyone:

The case is simple:
I suffer from severe migraine since I'm 4-5yo, and I've only been diagnosed of severe idiopathic osteoporosis a couple months ago. I'm 28 yo. I also broke almost each bone I have between 5-12x, with some notable exceptions. I never broke my ribs nor my back. I started to break my bones while my migraines were starting to get out of control (7-9yo), and I never worried about anything but the migraines, the nausea, and since I'm 16-18yo extremely severe abdominal pain every 12-18months. (enough to make me pass out each time, with a ticket for hospital,)

Last April-May, I had a severe migraine crisis that came a little too soon after an abdominal crisis (end of february). I hired a new physician and I changed neurologist. I wanted results, not excuses. And it paid off. I was diagnosed right on one thing. End of June I started Flunarizine (CCB) and carried on with low doses of Topiramate (2x25mg aday), and I started to take Magnesium as well with a lot of vitamin D.
My Migraine disappeared for 8-10 weeks!
That's what allowed me to realise how serious the osteoporosis was.
Mid-July I stopped the Topiramate (due to adverse side effects I was expecting. I used to take this drug before on very high dosage. I was brain-dead. ). I did a bisphosphonate perfusion at hospital. After recovering from the side effects (flu-like), I noticed that the migraine didn't come back despite the fact I stopped topiramate. Flunarizine + Magnesium + Calcium and Vitamin D was working well enough in combinaison.
but...
I started to gain weigh, and blamed the Flunarizine, and I asked to be switched to Verapamil. My idea. Many studies agree with me, that this was a defendable position.nI spent 6 years at University and I can always find extremely well done studies that agree with me. Verapamil in fact didn't work as well as Flunarizine. Medicine is neither mathematics not law and economics. But I now try to understand why Magnesium + Flnuarizine work this well. For me it felt normal to break bones 4-7x times a year, but that's because I started to break my bones while I was still a young child. To summarise:
Magnesium = Physiologic calcium blocker
Flunarizine = Calcium Channel Blocker. Calcium Channel Blockers don't cause nor aggravate osteoporosis. They work on calcium channel and not against the calcium needed by the bones.

1) Can the cause of an idiopathic osteoporosis be a severe lack in magnesium when someone is 13-18?
a) I always ate plenty of cheeses and drink plenty of milk. I grown up in Switzerland and France. My diet contained a lot more calcium than it ever contained magnesium.
b) Lack of a magnesium. ==> This would explain the very severe migraines I suffered of.
c) I don't know how this can explain the rare but persistent extreme abdominal pain with extreme nausea.
d) I never did glucocorticoids, and went through every migraine treatments starting with flunarizine (7yo), ending with botox injections. I did take some tramadol when I was 10-11, 18, 20, 22, 25, 27, mostly to fight the abdominal pain during 7-10 days, and never again against migraine like when I was 10-11.
e) I did severely abused of only type of drugs: the sumatriptans in all forms. (injections, pills, inhalers)
f) I went to hospital many many time to stop taking sumatriptans under medical supervision. But medication-induced migraine doesn't seem to be a side-effect I cannot recover from. It's easy to know when it starts and when it ends.
e) A couple years ago my blood test results pointed out an adrenal deficiency, but a worst condition was ruled out by two synacthen tests done at a 1y interval.
My specialists are on the opinion that its impossible to develop a severe osteoporosis as a result of an early exposure to morphine, tramadol, depakine, topamax. I'm on the opinion that I started breaking my bones many years before I was given any of these drugs. I'm a lucky guy there must be only one cause to all my health issues, including the migraines. I know I must be touching it right now, but I can't exactly see how and why?

  1. Hi divlas

    Thank you for sharing your story with us - we're glad you're here!

    I'm sorry things are so difficult right now, that sounds very frustrating. If you don't feel like you are getting anywhere with your current doctors, is it possible to find another?

    As much as I wish I could tell you what's going on, only a qualified doctor can do that. I can tell you silent or acephalgic migraine is a migraine attack without head pain, which is common in children, but adults can experience this as well. Let me share information on this type of migraine here; https://migraine.com/migraine-types/acephalic-complicated-migraine/ and https://migraine.com/migraine-types/abdominal-migraine/.

    A migraine attack either with the headache phase or without, can be triggered when things are out of whack in the body. By this I mean a magnesium deficiency, thyroid issue and many other things. You may want to keep a detailed migraine diary to see what triggers these attacks and if there is any pattern to them. We have information on that here; https://migraine.com/blog/keeping-migraine-diary-basics/. We also have information on magnesium here; https://migraine.com/living-migraine/magnesium-supplementation-for-migraine/

    I did find this on osteoporosis that may be helpful; https://medlineplus.gov/osteoporosis.html.

    I wish I had more information for you. Keep me posted on how you are feeling,
    Nancy

    1. Thank you for your very warm words Nancy.

      Things are doing better these days, I feel that I'm in good hands, I believe that my medical case finally got to the right team of doctors. They are researching, making progress, and most important of all they are trying to understand how things work for me. I sometime still feel like 80% of the doctors who touched my medical case in the past 23 years did very little to help me, or to understand me, and I still feel angry at some of them. I went through years of terrorising pain, fatigue, broken bones but finally I feel like we found the proper treatments for 90% of my problems. I'm relieved.

      1. Hi divlas,

        So good to hear. Getting the correct medical team in place can be an exhausting process. I'm glad you're finally getting somewhere.

        Will you keep us posted on how you are doing?
        Nancy

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