I just discovered your website and am very pleased to be in touch with other migraine sufferers. I am lucky in not having experienced the unfortunate remarks and lack of treatment that others reported.

What caused me to go on the web is that my doctor just prescribed Prozac as a preventitive. Does anyone else use this medicine in this way, and has it helped?

---dsjohns@schl-01.schl.purdue.edu

I'm 24 and have been suffering from migrains since I was 10. I suffer from two types of migraine- classic migrain, which thankfully I get only about one every 6 months, and low grade migrains - these are the worst! Low grade migrains are less pain intensive with less of the nausea, visual disturbances etc but they occur more frequently and for a longer duration. Its quite normal for me to suffer a low grade migrain that lasts for a whole month. The pain in my head drives me crazy but because the pain is less intensive I try to carry on as normal. I've tried allsorts of medication, nothing works effectively. Sandomigran was the only drug that offered any relief from these low grade migrains but they have the very unwanted side effect of weight gain. I've tried cranial therapy, from a osteopath, which seemed effective for a while but sure enough the headaches returned and the treatment was extremely expensive. I'm lucky I have a very supportive partner, whose extremely loving and tender towards me when I have the blasted pain in my head. He can tell with out me even saying I've got a headache, he says my eyes change. My mother, her mother and her mother all suffered from migrains. I just pray that when I have a daughter I don't pass it on to her!

---Keadie Bullock Nicholas.Bradshaw@xtra.co.nz
Wellington, New Zealand

I am 27 years old and have had migraines since the age of 2. Chronic pain hads been a major part of my life. I have accepted the fact that I will probably have headaches for the rest of my life. My family and friiends are very supportive. I am trying to find migraineurs who are interested in e-mailing (I'm not ready for chat rooms yet). If you are interested in chatting please e-mail me at vilsmith@usa1.com Hope to hear from you soon.

---Cathy

New Address: Vilsmith@greennet.net

The first migraine I can remember well is when I was in 5th grade. I hated my teacher and my school, and of course, we were doing our math. I told the teacher that I didn't feel good. My hands were clammy, my face was pale, and my body was shivering. She sent me to the nurse and I went home. The school nurse couldn't quite understand what was wrong with me, and I kept trying to tell her that I had a migraine, but the words kept coming out wrong. In other words, I get dillusional when I get them. My mom was the best at curing me...that is after I vomited for 15 minutes. She would but a cold washcloth on my forhead to keep me cool and to keep any light out of my eyes. She would calmy hold my hand and be very still and quiet until I fell asleep. The good part was that when I woke up, it was gone.

Later, when I was in 8th grade, I was so stressed that I missed a week of school because I was lying in bed with tears of pain gently sliding from my eyes, to my cheek, to my pillow. My mom was getting really scared because I was having them so often. When I went to see my opthamologist, my mom told him about my headaches. He called someone right then and there and he found out what might be causing them. We found out that I couldn't eat cheddar cheese, hot dogs, chocolate, or anything with caffine in it with out getting sick. Well, that worked for a while.

I continued to have a migraine about once a month up until my 16th Birthday. This one was a very memorable experience. I was all hyped up because I could finally drive, so there was all the excitement. By 8:00 p.m., it was so bad that I had to leave my own birthday party. I layed down and I fell asleep. I woke up about 11:00 p.m. in an all out crying fest. I landed myself in the emergency room. The results were extrodinary. The hospital gave me a shot of some kind, and within a minute all of the pain was gone. I was so happy. But the only thing was, my mom didn't like the idea that now we found a cure (for my migraines) she didn't want me to have to give myself a shot everytime I got a headache. Another thing was, I couldn't do it until I knew for sure that it was a migraine. That meant that I still had to go through the pain.

My junior year in highschool, I had to have spine surgery after we found 2 cracks in my 5th lumbar. At first they gave me tylenol 3, but it triggered migraines. Then they switched me to demerol, while I was in the hospital. It worked wonders. But when I got out, they gave me a perscription called naprosyn (naproxen) which is what I was originally taking for back pain, but out of pure home experiment, I now take it for migraines. I went to my family Doc and told him that it worked for them and he gave me a script. The good thing about naproxen is that I can take it when I have a regular headache. This way, it will never develop into a migraine, and even if it wasn't a migraine, it wouldn't hurt me in any way. I'm grateful for naproxen.

I still get migraines a lot, but mostly from stress. I can still eat a Snickers or drink a Pepsi, just as long as I pay attention to how often I splurge. If I get caffine running in my system, I'll get a migraine. But, now, as long as I can get to my pills, I won't get one at all. When I get a migraine, I see nothing like what was described in the pictures that I have just seen. I see cartoon characters with either teeny tiny heads and huge (fat) bodies or cartoon characters with really fat heads and teeny tiny bodies. I also see flashes of red, green, blue and pink. When I'm suffering, I have to lay in a silent dark room with a cold washcloth on my forhead. If I heard any sounds, I'll get sick. I wish luck to all of you sufferers out there in finding a cure for yourself. Hang in there. Something will come up. Ya'll can email me at nmoeller@pop.telegroup.com anytime.

Right now I take prozac, calan, lithium and depakote in a daily basis, plus 8 or 10 prescription and non prescription drugs daily (imitrex tabs,wigraine,esgic,ketaprofeno,vistaril,naprelan, butalbital, plus all over the counter analgesics).

I,m a pharmaco-dependant, and drs. send me to detox twice. It's a very hard way to try to live a normal life, I have a 10 years old boy, who sometimes is very scared of lousing me because he is the one that is always with me in my attacks and look for help when they have to take me to the ER.

There they treat me like a junk, everybody knows me there and they give me shots of toradol and vistaril, and sometimes oxigen and cortizone. It's good to have a place like this one, knowing that nobody was going to think that you are exagerating because a headache can't be so bad. I'm not giving up with my life, and I try to enjoy it as much as I can. If someone want to share with me new information, please write. My e-mail is : rodry@bellsouth.net

Thanks

Right now I'm with a treatment of prozac, lithium and calan in a daily basis, plus I take daily around 10 differents pills for the pain; imitrex, wigraine, esgic, ketaprofen, and all over tha counter analgesics. I know I have a pharmaco-dependancy, and I've been in detox twice.

The result of all this years searching for a cure, is that the doctors told me that I suffer from headaches (3 or 4) daily, plus the migraine attacks (3 each month); I end in the emergency room at least once a month and nobody can do nothing for me.

The last neurology send me to a pain clinic where they want to do me a cervical epidural of cortizone and anestisia.

If there is someone that have try this procedure please let me know, I don't know what else to do.

thanks-

---rodry@bellsouth.net

I have had headaches since I was thee years old ( be diagnosis of my father who is a physuician) , I am now 53. ...a long history and a lot of missed life. I have thre children ages 30, 28 and 26. The two oldest girls have headaches and my son has had only one. My mother is still experienceing them in her 80s and ny sister once in a while.

I use imitrix ( 50 m) in shot and pill form with some success. I wait too long and then cycle into these sieges as I call them., I have had up to 10 days of continuous headache. Isn't there someone out there who would take me ( or maybe just my head ) for research on "intractable" m,igraines as one of my doctors called them.

I would really like to talk to other headache people in the New Hampshire area. I have never been part of a support group but am ready now. Anyone ther ???

sincerely ,

---Susan Koerber wdside@totalnetnh.netwdside@totalnetnh.net

I wrote several months ago, I am a 10 year Migraine sufferer who is 30 years old. I take Paxil, Verlan, and Fiorinal when the headaches get bad. I also use Imitrex occasionally. Now here is the problem, I would really like to start a family but am so nervous about the fact that I will not be able to take migraine medication while pregnant. The fertility doctor keeps telling me I have a good chance of not having migraines while pregnant because of hormone change. I want to know if other woman experienced less Migraines while pregnant or more. I would really appreciate any feedback on this subject!

---Kimberly carter-man@worldnet.att.net

Just making contact with another similar aged sufferer would help as we feel pretty helpless. Watching her suffer is horrible. My wife is also a bad migraine sufferer so I suppose it is inherited.

---Ludwik123@aol.com

I am female and I have had migraines since I was 17--I'm 29 now. Before that, I had several episodes as a child of what I now feel were "abdominal migraines," literally, headaches in the stomach, which sometimes strike kids who grow up to have migraine, according to various sources. In my case, one of these abdominal migraines almost lead to an unneccesary appendectomy. The pain was never unbearable, just insistent, dull, causing nausea, and unexplained by the doctors.

Like many of you, I first diagnosed myself--folks who suffer migraine must know more about headache than most doctors out there. Since I was 17, these headaches have usually been on a 7 day schedule. One week, it will begin late on a Tuesday, for example, the next week, it will occur very early on Wednesday, then midday Wednesday, then late Wednesday the next week, etc. Strange, I know--I know of no other event that occurs on this schedule. The only trigger I know of definitely is alcohol of any kind, which can change the onset day. There have been times I have purposefully had something to drink to trigger one earlier if there was something very important coming up on a regular "headache day."

The headache is ALWAYS on the left side--I have never had one on the right. Usually no nausea, but that seems to be worstening lately. I have never had visual aura, but a really distinct emotional aura--I become very excitable, talkative and busy a day or so before one comes on. Also, during the actual headache, and this is REALLY weird, I sometimes become hyper-sexual, although I am in severe pain. (Which pain disappears during any sexual activity, recurring as soon as I stop, usually.) Also, I often get pain in my left forearm previous to a headache, and I am constantly sensitive on my left shoulderblade.

I have tried tons of medicines, ranging from fiorinal (nice, but only made me feel like I was floating above the still-there pain and made it hard to function) to mellaril, which is usually prescribed to people suffering from psychosis. I have no idea what the doc's reasoning was on this medicine, and needless to say, it did not help. My stock cure in college was an ice pack, a triple dose of Niquil and bedrest. Though the level of my pain seems to have rarely gotten to the point it does with most of the people whose posts I've read here, it just would go on and on until I couldn't cope any longer. I lost roughly a day a week from college for my entire undergrad career. When I first tried Imitrex injections at a college infirmary, I felt it was literally a miracle. I told total strangers about it on the way home from the clinic.

I am one of the lucky people for whom imitrex almost always works, even in the smallest pill dose. Recently, however, I had a "breakthrough headache" that caused me to bang my head and yank on my hair even after a double dose of Imitrex and a major prescription painkiller. I fear that my headaches may be changing for the worse. My mother has cluster headaches, rare for a woman, and she had migraine as a young woman. Please, please tell me I won't end up with clusters. I'd rather go through my headaches everyday for the rest of my life than to suffer like my mother does twice a year. Clusters aren't called the sucicide headache for nothing. However, my mom finally convinced a doctor (note--find a doc who has migraine him/herself and you will find a person who will do anything to help a fellow sufferer) to prescribe her oxygen, which she self-administers at the beginning of her pain--it has helped her 100%.

A final question--there's a strong history of Manic-depression (Bipolar disorder) in my family as well as headache. Is this true for any of you? If so, I'd like to hear from you. I am a mental health counselor, and I feel there must be a strong correlation between the two disorders.

I wish good luck to everyone out there, and I suppost the idea of having a medicalert bracelet for those of us with this horrible condition so stupid doctors and er workers will take our cries for help seriously.

Thanks for the place of solace,

---TCByrd t.and.y@usa.net

I sent in my case study a while back and now I check in every once in awhile to get new ideas, etc.  This forum is great for people to share what has worked for them and what has not but I hope it doesn't discourage people from trying some of the medications, etc. Everyone is different; what works for one, won't for another.  Many people have written in that the Imiitrex pills are worse than the shots.  I don't find this to be my case.  I tolerate the pills fairly well and they are effective for me if I take them at the first sign of the migraine.  It is sometimes difficult to do this and of course the cost is a deterrant.  If I don't take the Imitrex right away the chances that it will be effective are much less.  Also, sometimes in these cases the Imitrex will work but the headache will come back.  I wonder if this is what other sufferers mean when they say they are rebounding.  If so, it is not really a rebound as medically defined.  The medical research I have seen indicates that a rebound effect for Imitrex has not been documented. One last concern I have... or maybe call it a warning.  I do receive e-mails from "individuals" who have found my e-mail on the journal.  So far, they have mostly been from people who are selling a product.  Use your judgement everyone.

Non-solicitors can e-mail me at DStorz@interoffice.net.

---MemawPatti@aol.com

Today, though, my mom is visiting The Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Cleveland, Ohio. The whole family is hoping that the Department of Neurology can help my poor mother. I will definitely write again if we find out anything that can help anyone out there.

Just in case this will help anyone. My mom recently discovered that by taking a quantity of antacids (Tagamet, Gaviscon, etc...) along with pain killers (Fiorinal) at the first signs of a headache, the migraine can be lessened a great deal. This may be worth trying.

When I first found this web page, I printed out a few of the letters that had been sent to Ronda for my mom. It really helped her to know that she isn't the only one out there who suffers like this. Thank you for providing such a wonderful site and some interesting suggestions. Mom has tried a few.

Thank you so much,

---Renae M. Ault
naeault@rocketmail.com ( I would appreciate any feedback or suggestions)