Migraine management and Triptans

i take Rizatriptan ODT on the onset of a headache or even if I start with sinus like issues or if my eyes start to have pressure....these are all triggers for me to let me know a migraine is coming on and to take the Rizatriptan....I also need to lay down and close my eyes for a bit if I am able.  I use to use the Maxalt a certain brand but I believe they discontinued it so I have been on the Rizatriptan and if the migraine is bad I take a nausea medication as well and try to sleep.  How often are your migraines?

keep us posted.

have a good day

Wendy.

I take Naratriptan, for me I think as soon as they wear off, the pain is back

I also tried Frivotriptan last's longer in our system recomeneded by Migraine clinic in London.

That worked I was taking less .. but the the withdrawel from Narartriptan was too difficult to manage and my Dr said the Frivotriptan is more expensive even though I pay for my medicine they went back to Narartriptan

Hope this help#s

I am sorry to hear that you are struggling right now. It can be truly debilitating and sometimes others that haven't experienced migraines just aren't capable of understanding, ex work, because they can take a tylenol and the headache ends. Sometimes my coworkers are in search of tylenol or advil for a headache, and I've been asked because they are aware I have migraines. I have to kindly explain that I've been told I CANNOT use over the counter meds for headache (due to risk of rebounds) so I only have prescriptions, most could likely knock out a horse (lol).

I can agree that when taking triptans it seems that a resistance is developed, or it is in my case. I think I will begin alternating my most effective two so that resistance may not be such an issue. Worth a try.

I have tried quite a few triptans in several forms over the years. I have suffered with chronic migraine for about 7 years and also have been diagnoses with idiopathic intracranial hypertension, which seems to increase my number of headache days per month.

I started on Maxalt/Rizatriptan first and it was effective for the first few years. I then was changed to the oral disentegrating tablet which you put on/under your tongue and it is supposed to get into your system more quickly. It caused some odd facial numbness and I suffered aphsia, or the inability to form words or sentences. My husband was really freaked out thinking I was having a stroke, and so was I equally frightened. It was the first time I had experienced that symptom, it has happened since so probably a coincidence, but I wouldn't take it again.

I tried Zomig/Zolmatriptan oral tablet and nasal spray with no success. Again, the nasal spray is supposed to be more quickly absorbed.

Imitrex/Sumatriptan tablets were partly effective temporarily but the headache returned. For faster action tried the injectable form. I do this myself and while I have to go to bed it will do the trick most of the time, however I feel hungover the next day. If it did not competely resolve I would go for an injection of Toradol, which worked for me for several more years until recently. The combination still worked, but I had to do two rounds of the Toradol injections and oral steroids to break the 13 day pain cycle. This might have been my sign that it was time to change it up again. I developed colitis, so my neuro doesn't want me to take that any longer until I have myself checked out by a gastroenterologist... colonoscopy yay ....

Currently I am taking Migranal/Dihydroergotamine (DHE) Nasal Spray my first few doses were highly effective used along with Reglan/Metoclopramide for nausea and to knock me out. I am currently working with a headache clinic alongside my regular neuro, the clinic wants me to come off of some medications, Effexor/Venlafaxine, and Propranolol. The side effects of tapering all of these medications are nasty but one is increased migraines. This is why I believe the last dose of the DHE nasal spray did not work, as the migraine endures for 9 days while I worked through my other abbortive therapies. My neuro called ahead to the hospital emergency department to ensure they had DHE on hand for an infusion among other things she wanted me to receive. I left the hospital almost pain free.

As an aside when I received an injection of Toradol I would also receive an injection of magnesium and an injection of Reglan. Somewhere in there I would take a course of Methylprednisolone steroids to try to break the pain cycle, I am not quite sure which was first off hand, this was during periods of migraine that was lasting longer than 24-72 hours. The hospital also gave me the magnesium, reglan, solumedrol, benedryl and fluids alomg with the DHE infusion. It took a really long time to get all of that in me, they said they had to wait certain amounts of time, and you may require two IV lines. They decided not to do a second one on me thankfully, but it may have slowed down my treatment time a bit due to having to wait certain times between pushing the next med.

I have a friend at work who takes Relpax with success. I personally have not tried it (yet lol). There are more out there to try as well. I realized that I have tried a lot of all sorts of migraine preventatives and abortive therapies but not ALL options when asked to fill out a questionaire with a list of about every medicine one could think of for migraine.

If you have any questions let me know. I hope that you find something that works for you. Don't be discouraged from other people's lack of results from medications, what works for me may not work for you. If your doctor isn't willing to help you, or only pushes a one size fits all treatment it is time to move on.

Jenn