Migraine

Hi everyone I am Laci, 25. I'm an RN at a hospital in OKC. I have been suffering with chronic daily headaches for almost 3 years. The headaches are sometimes tension and sometimes migraines (transformed.) On a good month, I might get one headache free day-a really good month. I have tried a variety of rescue meds, over-the-counter meds, and preventative meds with no luck. A complication to my case is a have chronic back pain due to bulging discs, degenerative disc disease and osteoarthritis in my thoracic spine. I am on narcotic pain pills with suboxone (a med that keeps me from getting addicted to the pain pills) for this. These meds along with my overuse of excedrin for my CDH causes rebound headaches which probably keeps my preventatives and rescue triptans from working well. Anybody out there successfully discontinue Excedrin or another over-the-counter that they were getting rebounds from? Any advice? I am starting physical therapy this week to get off the pain meds (I HATE THEM) so I really am hopeful that I soon will be able to manange my back pain without narcotics. I have only been on the narcotics for 3 months and my headaches were with me for far longer than that so they certainly are not the cause but they are not helping. Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks!

Hi Laci and welcome to our forum family! Our goal is to provide everyone with the information and support that we all need to manage our Migraines and/or headaches. To that end, we consider this a “safe harbor,” where nobody tries to sell us anything, and we all use “family-friendly” language so parents are comfortable letting their children read the forum with them.

Please take a few minutes to review our policies and guidelines along with the other information in the START HERE folder. For information about Migraines, a good article to begin with is Learning About Migraines - Where to Start.

I'm one of the fortunate members of the forum who have not had to endure Medication Overuse Headaches (MOH) aka rebound headaches. There are many members who have gone through exactly what you're going through right now. In fact, one of our moderators, Droolie, also had issues with Excedrin. Hopefully, she'll be along shortly to share her experience with you. In the meantime, let me get you started with some articles to read:

• Medication Overuse Headache: When the Remedy Backfires

• Medication Overuse Headache: What Do You Know?

• Chronic Daily Headache - The Basics

• Tension-Type Headaches - the Basics

• Transformed Migraine - The Basics

The good news is you're aware of MOH and how important it is to get it dealt with so your preventive medications can start to work for you. You've also found a great site full of accurate information and caring support.

I wish you all the best and please come back often and let us know how you're doing. Also, if you have any other questions, just ask and we'll do our best to help you. Good luck with your physical therapy

Hi Laci,

Welcome to the forum. You are on the right track when you say you want to come off your pain meds and your over the counter stuff. That was one of the first things the first doctor I went to see about my migraines had me do. It's not exactly an easy thing but it is doable. I hope the PT helps with your back problems so you can lessen your use of the narcotics. I understand where you're coming from, I have shoulder and neck problems and it's very hard to deal with the chronic pain, especially when I'm trying so hard to avoid MOH.

Best of luck with everything and I hope you join us here often.

Meli

Hi Laci!

Welcome to the forum! I have to say, you sound very well educated about Migraine medications and MOH. I'm sorry you have experienced MOH - it is a nasty little thing, isn't it? Before I was diagnosed or knew what MOH was, I had it from popping Advil like candy. I would take way too many - like 4-8 or more in a day - just for the 1/2 hour of relief it would give.

With MOH, you are right, your preventives will not work if you are in rebound. I have found it to be quite a tough battle, since I get Tension Headaches and also Migrianes....and Migraines triggered by tension headaches. I have not found anything over the counter that works for my TTH, so I still have to rely on narcotics for now. I try so hard not to take them, but sometimes I have to. If I wait too long with the TTH, I will get a Migraine. It is such a nasty cycle. The constant every day pain is annoying and also life changing to say the least.

It looks like Laura gave you a great amount of info to start with. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

We look forward to getting to know you! Welcome again!

Welcome Laci!

I have to tell you, with also having transformed migraine, advil-excedrine-aleve, they were all my best friends. I completely overused them and depended on them. As soon as I saw my first migraine specialist, I realized I had to stop using these. So cold turkey, I stopped them. My pain got worse for just a little while and then I got used to not having those meds. Since I was seeing the specialist, he was able to give me more appropriate meds (non narcotic) to handle the pain. They also helped me manange the meds, taking each one no more than 3 days a week to stay out of MOH. Do you see a doc for your head pain?

If you get meds to treat your headpain with, you should find that you will no longer need the otc meds. Also, as I am sure you know, your preventatives should work better once you get out of MOH. There are so many abortives out there that you can try. They don't sound like migraine meds, but I am now just on toradol, benadryl, baclofen and norflex as needed. There are just so many that you can try.

My big rebound adventure was from Excedrin. My internist and endo at the time had me taking it around the clock daily for both migraine and muscle spasms which resulted from my thyroidectomy and trying to talk around a deadened vocal cord. The Excedrin did very little for the severe, constant pain, and they had me taking more and more of it to no avail. It didn't take too long before I was in rebound.

It's very true that if you are in rebound, then that's likely the reason your other meds, be they abortive or preventative, aren't working as well as you'd like them to. The only way to get out of rebound is to stop the offending med until the rebound is good and gone. When I cut out the Excedrin, it was ugly for two or three days, but then I started to feel the rebound lift. It took me about three to three-and-a-half weeks to squash it all the way. I then waited another three before I'd even consider taking Excedrin for anything. Definitely, getting out of rebound should be done with the doctor on board, and overseeing. Tapering might be needed, and the speed of tapering can be very individual. I did things cold turkey with a side of German Stubborn thrown in, but that's very hard on some people.

Since then, I've got a prescription for Lortab for use for both migraine rescue and fibro pain. I am extremely cautious with it, and have to be pretty much to my breaking point before I take it, though. I'm committed to never getting into rebound again. Generally, when I find myself holding my breath against pain, it's time to take it. More often, I rely on my chiro adjustments, comfort measures, and sometimes my TENS unit instead of meds as much as possible. It helps a lot just knowing that I have strong enough pain relief if I need it. Back in the Excedrin days, I didn't have that, and the desperation of dragging myself through work every day to be able to only lay on the floor in spasms and agony every evening just led to more and more OTC meds (at the suggestion of the docs who unfortunately just weren't skilled enough in pain relief to help me).