Migraine

Well questions seem to be what I am good at so here I go...

Ok. I am taking an MAO inhibitor for my preventative. Doc is confident in it and just increased my dose at my last visit since I wasn't seeing results yet. I was fine with this since he was so confident, I wanted to give it a fair shot. We all know that we will have to deal with some side effects with our meds. I don't get many and can usually tolerate them.

For a few years now, trembling as become and issue for me. It started out that just my hands would shake a little and it would pass. Then it started happening more and lasting longer. I didn't know it could have to do with any of my meds, but it was increasingly getting worse. It got to the point that my entire bosy was weak and very shaking. I can even be unsteady when I am just trying to walk. So I called doc today.

He thinks it from the MAOI so he said to decrease my dose. This seems to be the only med he wants to work with right now. So I am not sure what to think at this point. I had to increase my dose because the smaller one wasn't working. If I go back to that smaller dose, then I wont be getting better. I don't know what do if this med is my only option right now. It leaves me kind of stuck to be at a dose that doesn't help and not have any other med options

I am not even sure how to address this issue. Any ideas? please share any thoughts, opinions, or advice you have. thanks a ton guys

Alaura,

I'm glad you've already gotten in touch with the doctor

The first question that popped into my sleepy brain is how long have you been at your current dose, the one he just dropped you back down to? If it hasn't been a few months just yet, he may want to see if you'll still get results a bit further on down the road.

When is your next appointment with him? You can always ask him then what his line of thought is right now. Maybe he'll be adding in another preventive at some point to? That's what my doctor does from time to time. If we find a med that I can tolerate and it seems to be doing some good, even if it's just a little, then we keep it on my treatment plan and add in another...of course, it depends what class the medicine is when he's done this before.

Good luck and I hope the trembling stops soon!

In a way, it's a good thing that your doc only wants to tweak one med right now. If you only tweak one thing, it's a lot easier to tell if it makes a difference. When you tweak more than one thing, it becomes nearly impossible to tell what's really going on. Ideally, we should only ever tweak one thing at a time.

On the dose front, backing off a little might just be a temporary thing. Once you see if that gets the trembling and weakness back under control, then you'll be better able to adjust to it, possibly. It could just be that you need to ramp up more slowly to let yourself acclimate better. I know it's disheartening to go back to a dose that doesn't seem strong enough to accomplish its job, but you'll be better able to have some patience with the whole adjustment process if you're not so trembling and weak all the time.

Hang in there!

Hey there,

And try not to talk yourself into the new lower dose not working. Who knows - it very may well!