Migraine

I was just at my docs office on friday for a terrible fibro flare. She gave me some vicidone and darvocet to help me manage the pain from the fibro. But I am wondering if this will help my migraines too. If I am taking pain meds for another reason, could they help me manage my migraines too?

Does anyone here deal with fibro too? If so, how do you manage it along with your migraines

Yep on the fibro front. To help control the pain when I'm in a fibro flare, I have Soma, which is a muscle relaxant, and Lortab, which is a narcotic pain med similar to Vicodin and Darvocet. It does help, but I tend to take it very sparingly.

As for helping migraine, narcotic pain meds aren't the best choice. They are generally reserved as a rescue med, to be taken when our migraine-specific abortive meds fail. This is because pain meds can only mask the pain of a migraine. While this can help you to feel more comfortable, and make you feel like you've accomplished something, pain meds really can't shut down the migraine process itself. You might feel better because there's less pain, but the migraine will continue to run in the background, where it can continue to wreak havoc. Another issue with using pain meds with migraine is the potential for Medication Overuse Headache (MOH), which is also known as rebound. Susceptible people can end up with MOH in just a single dose of an offending pain med. As someone who's been in rebound, I can tell you, it's not worth it to overuse pain meds and land there. It's one of the reasons I tend to under treat my pain by using my pain meds so cautiously. I never, ever want to go back into rebound again.

Here's a great article on Medication Overuse Headache, and another on the differences between preventative, abortive, and rescue medications.

Pain medications do have a role to play in migraine, but it isn't as a first-line defense.

Wow dragondrool! Thanks. I have had migraines for a few years now, but they were never a significant part of my life, like now. The more I look around on here, I am realizing I have a lot to learn. I didn't know this was a disease that can take so much dedicated care, but I so want to do what I can to stop this.

I noticed that you guys see specialists. THere are doctors just for migraines? I see a nuerologist here in town, and sometimes question if she knows what she is doing. What can I do to get better treatment and change how much this is impacting my life?

Thanks so much guys, for all this info you provide

Yep. A lot of us do see specialists. A few of us see primary doctors for migraine care, or general neurologists, but there are indeed doctors that specialize completely in headache and migraine out there. We've got a list of Patient-recommended Headache and Migraine Specialists, if you're interested in looking to see of there's someone in your area. One thing that I can mention, though, is that a lot of our members travel to see their specialists. Depending on where one lives, a specialist might not be nearby.