Preventative number 2 - Allegron

At last I had got an appointment with a neurologist.  I was expecting the world.  A torrent of probing questions, brain scans, blood tests all resulting in a huge list of possible options.  After 5 minutes brief questioning and testing my reflexes he confirmed that I have migraines (so tell me something that I don't already know) and wrote a note for me to take to my doctors for some tablets.  I had disappointment written all over my face!  Was that it?  Where were the probes?  Where were all of the clever medical gadgets? Where was the excitement?  Where was the machine that goes "bing"?  Grasping at straws I asked what would we do if the tablets didn't work?  He advised my doctors to try two further preventatives which pretty much guarantees that I won't have to see him again for at least 4 1/2 months assuming that none of them work.

But let's not start on a negative note.  Allegron is actually an antidepressant, so if nothing else, I might still get the migraines, but I will be happy with them.  The dose for depression is 25mg three or four times a day.  So that's 75mg to 100mg per day.  I am starting on 10mg to be taken just at night and am increasing by 10mg per week until I get to 50mg so the does is well below the norm.

Let's have a look at how it went...

Week One.  10mg of Allegron
I had a cold which normally means that I don't get migraines anyway (see post migraines-vs-being-ill).  So getting only 1 migraine this week was nice but not a big surprise.  And I didn't feel overly happy so the antidepressant wasn't working at this low does either.

Week Two.  20mg of Allergron
I didn't get off to the best of starts as I forgot to take my first dose.  How do you remember to take tablets every day?  Any ideas are greatly received.  Anyhoo, two and a bit migraines this week.  The 2nd was a big one so no improvement yet.

Week Three.  30mg of Allergron
Sunday nights is a bad night for me as I forgot the first dose of 3 again.  I am still waiting for the migraines to subside and am hoping to be able to stop increasing the dose before I reach the 50mg maximum.  I really don't like taking tablets unless I have to.  As for the frequency of migraines, it was the same as week two.  Two migraines with the second one being a bad one.  I got it on the way to work which is unusual as normally I get them in the afternoon.  Not that I really want a change in that direction.  Interestingly I can feel the effects of the antidepressant kicking in a bit.  My mood is definitely lighter this week.  I can't imagine what I would feel like on the full dose if this small amount effects me in this way.  I would be floating!

Week 4.  40mg of Allegron
Ok, enough is enough.   By the end of the 4th week, the migraines are still there, just as before.  But, the intensity of them is far greater than I normally get.  The pain that I get is sharper than normal and whilst the triptans still get rid of them, until that happens, the pain is far worse.

So I call the doctors and ask them what happens next and they tell me to move onto drug number 3.  But that's a story for another blog...

Oh, and I have no idea what the picture actually depicts, but I thought it was kind of kitsch.

Migraines v's being ill

There is a constant search for the elusive trigger for your migraines.  What causes them, what makes them worse and more importantly, what makes them better.

It was with some surprise that I stumbled upon this preventative, if preventative is the right word for it.  I've not heard of anyone else reporting that and when talking to some people from Migraine Action, they raised their eyebrows in surprised interest when I told them.  The problem is that it's  not really a preventative which I would advise anybody to take.  I mean, it works, but it's not something that you can get from your doctors.  It's called being ill.  No really, stay with me here because this really happens.  I rarely get a migraine when I am not well.  Just to re-cap, my migraines normally appear every 2 to 3 days.  Here are 3 examples of what I mean:

1-  During the recent round of colds, I had quite a bad cough and runny nose that lasted for about 5 weeks (ok, so stop the man-flu comments.  I can hear you out there.  As it happened, my darling wife kept on complaining that I didn't go to the doctors quickly enough and that I needed to accept that I really wasn't well rather than trying to push through.  You just can't win sometimes!)  Anyhoo, rant over.  During that time, I didn't get a single migraine.  The first one hit about 4 weeks into the cold.  It was at that point that I knew that the cold was going.  Strange but true huh?  But, it doesn't end there.  

2- I have a habit of cricking my back by pulling a muscle, or trapping a nerve.  Whilst the pain of the back and the immobility of my shoulder remains, the migraines stay away.  

3- I have recently been diagnosed with Arthritis in my foot.  I am still not sure which type it is other than R negative.  The foot pain comes and goes, and even this makes my migraines disappear.  That is, until the pain in the foot has been around for a while at which point the migraines make an unwelcome comeback.

 

To be honest, I think that I prefer the migraines because they are, most of the time, treatable.  I really wouldn't want to go through 2 weeks of neck pain just to avoid having a mig.  But, the illness and the lack of migraines has to be connected somehow?  Right?  It can't be my body just being kind to me by not wanting to subject itself to too much pain in one go?  Clearly not.  But what the link is, I have no idea.  I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on this.  Do you find that migraines lesson when you are ill?  Do you have a theory as to why?  Let me know.

Miracle Migraine Cure

Over the years the frequency of my migraines has slowly been increasing. Now I get two to three migraines per week.  I have been taking triptans whenever I feel the early symptoms. I have worked my way through them, as you do if you are a sufferer, as nobody knows which one will work for you until you try it. I use Maxalt (Rizatriptan). They work by immediately making the migraine worse, then an hour later it is gone. For those lucky people who have never had a migraine, let me tell you what happens if I don't treat it. They can last from 3 hours to, wait for it, 3 long painful days.

If the migraine starts in my neck then I have found that Syndol is a slightly cheaper way to remove the symptoms. The problem with that is that I am often left with a fuzzy feeling for the rest of the day. Now whilst this can sometimes be quite a nice happy haze, it isn't ideal, especially if my boss is trying to tell me something important and I am sitting there grinning at her.

Then disaster struck.  I got a really bad migraine at work and had left my triptans at home.  To my horror I realised that I was out of Syndol. Nothing else has ever touched them, but in the vein hope that this time might be different from all of the rest, I took 2 panadol. Unsurprisingly, they didn't even dent the pain. So what has Syndol got in that panadol doesn't.  One of the active ingredients is caffeine.  I had recently read that the reason caffeine is added to drugs is to speed up the absorption process.  I don't normally drink coffee. In fact I don't often have anything with caffeine in it. But I was a desperate man with a pain in the head. So out came the mug, in went the granules and in went the water, just off boiling.  Old hotel management habits die hard as coffee should not be made with boiling water. Tea is made with boiling water and for coffee the water should be just off boiling.

I sipped the strong black drug (no milk for me) and as I expected... Nothing! By the time I finished the mug the migraine was still th... Um actually, hold on a minute. I feel my head in disbelief.  The pain has to be in there somewhere.  But shock, it has gone!

Let's not get too excited here. Sometimes they do just go after a short time and this was probably one of them. So the next time I got a migraine I thought, why not! So I had another mug of coffee.

First sip.... Nothing. The pain was still there.
Second sip... Nope, it must have been a coincidence.
Half way through... Still got the pain. Oh well.
Almost finished... Hold on a minute, the pain is going.
Finished... So had the migraine!

Extended trials have shown (that is me grabbing a cuppa each time I get a mig) that a cup of coffee will stop about 3 out of 4 migraines in their tracks.  I have tested it a number of times since. Every time I feel the migraine, even the very early signs of one, I pop on the kettle and brew up. By the time I have finished the mug the pain has gone. The amazing thing is that there are no side affects other than feeling really good!!!

I have looked into this in a bit more detail and apparently this is not unknown for coffee to help migraine sufferers. Why am I always the last to find out about these things? Apparently the caffeine makes the blood vessels dilate (or something like that) which is similar to what a triptan does. You have to be careful not to drink too much coffee of else you will start to depend on it and it might ever cause you to get more migs. But one cup every two days is fine (and yes I have checked this with my doctor).

So there you have it. A migraine cure in a mug. Cheap and available almost everywhere. Let me know if you suffer and how you cure your headaches.

Update...  Sadly the frequency of which a mug of coffee works has dropped a bit over the last few months (I originally drafted this blog a while back).  I now find that a cup of coffee will cure perhapse 1 in 3 migraines and even then, only when taken with another drug.  But you know what?  I don't care.  Anything that stops the pain is good.  The more options and cures that work the better!

Overcooked Physiotherapy

Part on of my journey into the world of physiotherapy can be found here http://anothermigraine.blogspot/physiotherapy-and-migraines.

There was a fair amount of trepidation as appointment two drew nearer.  The combination of the induced migraine and the neck pain from from my first appointment was still sharp in my mind.  To make me less inclined to attend, the physio told me that it would get worse before it got better.  I took a deep breath and began to ascend the staircase to the first floor.  We got straight down to business.  I undid the top few buttons of my shirt and lay face down on the bed.  The physio started to apply the pressure to my neck only this time she had a much better idea where the sweet spot what and it wasn't long before the pain meter was flickering in the red and I could see stars in front of my eyes.  The pain really was quite excruciating and only just bearable.  If the pain got any worse then I would have had to have stopped the treatment.  Apparently she was inflicting a 5.5 pain rating on me out of 6.  As the pain increased, the involuntary giggles started and my leg decided to get in on the act by flipping up in the air.  The more the pain, the higher my leg and the louder I laughed.  I am sure that the physio used this as an indicator as to when the pain subsided.  Leg touches down on the bed equals no more pain.  After some analysis and a glass of water, I was sent on my way for another week.   

The following week the combination of the pain and being face down for so long gave me a nose bleed.  A common problem that I have when I am run down and quite a problem when I am meant to lay face down for so long, so that week was cut a little short.  The following weeks came and went and so did the pain.  After six sessions we had come to the following conclusions:
1- I had a slippery C2.  Nobody had ever told me that before.  Apparently when applying pressure to one side of the C2 it slipped all the way to the other side rather than seating itself in the middle where it should be.
2- The treatment had not worked.  Not only that, but the frequency of my migraines had got worse which was quite a disaster.

Dr Dean Watson from Australia championed this trial and apparently it works for a lot of people.  So, as always, don't let my experience put you off if you want to try it for yourself!

But, this isn't the end of the story.  The physio (who shall remain nameless) took my increased migraines very seriously and personally and after a few weeks research and a number of conversations with Dr Watson, she offered me the chance for her to attempt to reverse the damage.  She had, in her own words, "over cooked it" and had applied too much pressure to my neck.  She was very upset about what she had done, but was confident that it was reversible.

So, should I risk it?  Would it get better, or could I end up with one long permanent migraine.  As I am the trusting type I decided to go for it, even though it meant more weeks of pain.  So I got six more weeks of free physio until we reached the point where no more progress was being made and I was pretty much back to where we started 5 long months ago with 1 to 2 migraines per week.

So was it worth it?  There are always risks when taking part in a trial.  That's why they are a trial!  I came out of it no better and no worse off which is a shame.  But I still think that it was worth it and I would love to hear from anyone who has had a success with this or any other physio treatment.

Physiotherapy and migraines

I now knew that I had migraines, which was a big plus, as I could now find some real help.  This lead me to discover the world of triptans which meant that most headaches lasted only an hour or so rather than up to 3 days.  But that wasn't enough for me.  I wanted more!  I was on a quest to discover a cure for my migraines.  There had got to be someone, somewhere, with a cure for migraines.  Feverish searching on-line and would you believe it? A new migraine research programme was being carried out just down the road from where I worked.  Perfect.

The research was based on physiotherapy to the upper neck.  The top of the neck is where your spine starts.  The disks in your spine, from the top down are called C1, C2, C3 etc (see diagram).  This research was based on applying specific pressure to one of the discs.  This pressure would induce the migraine and then remove it.  The idea was that it would reprogramme your body into not having migraines anymore.

I walked up the stairs behind an opticians to get to my appointment.  A nice lady introduced me to the concepts of the test and took down all of the details of my migraines.  Then we got down to business.  I lay face down on the bed looking at the floor through a nearly made to measure hole wondering why they couldn't put a picture on the floor for me to look at.  The physio started to size up my neck with her thumb and forefinger.  She pushed down with her thumb on my C1 and asked whether that hurt.  Nope, nothing.  A slight change in the direction of her thumb prompted the same lack of pain.

She then moved down to my C2 and as the pressure was applied, I felt some kind of pressure spread across my head.  "Is that your migraine" she asked eagerly.  It wasn't.  The pain was too dull and at the back of my head not the front right where I normally get them.  Her thumb moved slightly and the pain moved with it.  It was as if she was controlling the pain with a game controller (I was going to say joystick, but does that age me at all?).  This feeling was equally as unusual, but still not my migraine.  She took her thumb off to consider my neck in all of it's complexities and decided to change her angle of attack to the other side of the bed. 

YOW, that's the one!!!  That's my migraine.  "Good" she said and continued to apply the pressure.  "Tell me when the pain stops".  The pain didn't stop, but time did.  Not only had I a really bad migraine, but I had someone pushing with all of her might on the back of my neck.  The pain surged up from my neck, through my head, bounced around my eye socket, down my cheek and back down to my neck.  I got the pain induced giggles.  I couldn't help it, giggling away as she put me through this suffering.  The pain started to lesson after about 3 minutes and then a minute later it stopped and she removed her thumb and waved her hand around to get the blood to flow back into it.  Even though I lay there completely drained, I felt sorry for that thumb.  You try pushing down on somthing for 4 or 5 minutes and see how long it takes before your thumb starts to hurt.

As I lay there, face down and exhausted, the thought went through my head that I had another five weeks of this to go.  "That was just a preliminary check", the physio said.  "The pain might get worse next week, but it should then get harder and harder for me to find your migraine as the weeks progress until I can't find it anymore.  That means that the treatment has been a success and you shouldn't get migraines anymore."

I will tell you how it went and whether I coped in my next post.  Let me know if you have had a similar treatment, how it worked for you and whether you coped with it!

The Magical World of Triptans

There are so many different types of alternative medicines that is can be difficult to decide which one to go for first.  It is also easy to forget that there is an alternative to the alternative.  Good old fashioned traditional doctors.  So I made an appointment and went along.  They confirmed that I was suffering from migraines.  It was nice to have it confirmed after so many years of suffering exactly what the pain was and that I wasn't going to collapse at any minute.  Their first piece of advise was that I take over the counter drugs as these quite often work.  I had already worked my way through all of these from paracetamol, to nurofen, to sinus cures and none of them touched the pain.

The docs then introduced me to the world of triptans.  There are about 8 or so different triptans on the market and no way of telling which one will work for you.  This came as a bit of a surprise to me.  Surely the doctors would know how the drugs work and which one would be best for me?  But, no.  It is a case of simple trial and error.  So off I went on an unknown adventure into the world of triptans.

Triptan 1 - I can't remember the name of this triptan as I only took a few of them.  There was no change to the pain and no side effects.  This wasn't the best start, but I persevered.

Triptan 2 - Zolmitriptan (Zomig).  I wasn't expecting much.  After all the first triptan hardly set my world alight.  But boy, was this triptan was different.  This triptan was evil (please note that this triptan does work for a lot of people so please don't let my experience put you off).  The effects were startling by their severity.  About 1/2 an hour after taking the tiny tinsy tablet my whole world ground to a halt.  My head started to spin, my vision was blurred, my movements were hampered like I was walking through treacle.  Somehow, I had just driven and parked outside of the Synagogue where I was learning that evening and luckily I was a bit early.  I lent my head back on my chair to try and clear the muggy feeling and half an hour later, woke up.  The worst of the pain had gone but my tongue felt furry and twice the size and the world was still slightly sluggish.  There was a stark similarity to a hangover.  There was even a slight sicky feeling.  Zomig had got rid of my migraine, so that's good.  But, the side effects were not overly desirable which was very bad.

3 - Rizatriptan (Maxalt).  Not perfect, but definitely the best yet.  You have to take a triptan as soon as the symptoms appear.  This is because a migraine will slow your metabolism so waiting too long means that the tablet would not be digested properly and thus might not be as effective.  It took me a while to get past the "it's just a small headache and the pain will go soon" stage.  Taking this route means missing the window of effectiveness for the triptan and it won't work.  But did Maxalt it work?  No and yes.  The no is because immediately after taking the tiny little tablet, the pain gets a lot worse as the stabbing pain in my head increases.  But within an hour, the pain has gone.


4- Sumatriptan.  I decided to dable a bit and try another triptan variant.  Luckily, my doctors are very open to trial and error.  If yours isn't, you must push them into letting you try as many triptans as you need (but just not all at once of course) until you find the one that works for you.  Sumatriptan was very similar to Maxalt expect the success rate was every so much slightly lower.  I still have a few tablets in my drawer at work as an emergency back-up in case I run out of Maxalt, which I sadly quite often do.  I really must get better at ordering a repeat prescription.

So I have found the miracle cure to my migraines.  Yay!  No longer will I have to suffer the pain and disruption in my life.  Sigh... If only it was a simple as that... More to come in my next blog entry.

Does Reiki Cure Migraines?

A friend of mine was training to be a reiki practitioner and wanted someone to practice on.  I am a huge skeptic when it comes to alternative medicines.  Especially following my laughable exploits with allergy tests.  But, I also have an open mind and I really want some of these therapies to work.  That way life would become that little bit more magical.  So I said yes, let's give it a go.  The fact that she was rather attractive didn't sway my decision to help out at all.  No really... not at all.

For those of you who don't know (from wiki), reiki uses a technique commonly called palm healing as a form of complementary and alternative medicine.  Practitioners believe that they are transferring healing energy in the form of ki through the palms. Localised reiki treatment involves the practitioner's hands being held on or near a specific part of the body for a varying length of time.

My friend get's to my place and we turn the lights down low and put on some relaxing music.  If I recall it was a rain-forest version of Pachelbel's Canon so at least, if it doesn't work, I can have a relax.  I lay down on my back on the floor and she kneels next to me.  She started by placing her hands over my forehead.  Then on the back of my head and to the sides.  She says that I have a strong chakra which I thank her for without really knowing what she means or whether that's a good thing to have or not.  Her hands move down either side of my right arm.  Her hands always hovering above my body and never touching it (except the back of my head which she had to hold up).

By this point I was starting to realise that this so called treatment wasn't really up to much.  I don't know what I was expecting to feel as I was in my late 20's and fairly fit and healthy at the time.  There was no tingling.  No spiritual uplifting.  No veil being lifted.  I didn't even consider my headaches an issue at the time and never mentioned them to her.  It was purely for her to practice on me.

Then her hands hovered over my stomach and it rumbled viciously.  "They always do that," she says.  "Something to do with the energy transfer."  But I wasn't convinced as my stomach had a history of grumbling.  Her hands continued their floating journey past each limb and joint.  Then she got to my right knee.  She stopped to focus on this joint and I felt it warm up.  I glanced down and she was definitely not touching my knee.  One hand was over my knee and the other was palm down on the floor.  This is to ground the energy if it starts to build up to much.  By now my knee joint was burning and I had a strong sensation to bend my leg as if the tendons were being tightened.  Her hands moved on and so did the feeling.

Working her way around my body the same thing, albeit slightly less sensational, happened to my left knee.  After the treatment I got up and only then realised how good my knees felt.  I had (and still do but to a lesser extent thanks to this treatment) a habit of sitting with my knees bent with my legs folded underneath my body.  This put a huge strain on the joints and they always ached when I got up.

So what is my conclusion about whether reiki works?  Did it help my headaches?  I'm not sure.  I have tried it a few times recently with the emphasis purely on my migraines and it hasn't done anything for them.  But, after the treatment my knees felt great for a good 3 or 4 months.  A real and definite improvement.  This was a double blind test as neither I nor my friend knew that there was anything wrong with me.  She managed to trace and fix a problem which could have got a lot worse (he says uncrossing his legs).  It's simple...  Reike really does work.  And the world is a little bit more magical for it.

Allergy Tests and Diaries

Alternative health expert number one was allergy testing.  Not via the doctors as they don't like providing them.  You are what you eat so I was sure that the pain must be caused by something I was eating. Remember, I still didn't know that they were migraines, just bad headaches.

I was ushered to a low couch in a room behind a chemists and told to undress my left foot. A strange start, but what the hey! I was given a metal bar to hold whilst the specialist, and I use the term sparingly here, held my foot on her lap. The metal bar was connected to a strange contraption containing test tubes of clear liquid. A wire connected this to a metal pen which completed the contraption. Each vial of liquid was in turn placed into the main hole. For each one, she moved the metal pen down the inside of my big toe as if she were drawing a line from top to bottom. Each stroke made the machine emit a whining sound which would progressively get higher. Apparently, the degree of change in sound was dependent on the resistance between my hand, the vial of liquid and my toe. The higher the whine, the less resistance which was good (I think). If the whine petered out before reaching it’s zenith it meant that there was something in my body that blocked the signal. That would be what I was allergic to.  Or it could just mean that she didn't move the pen quite as far, thus giving the impression of an allergy (I know, I must stop being a cynic, but I just can't help myself).

It didn’t go that well and I did feel a little bit sorry for her.  The first item of resistance was pork. That was a bad start as I am Jewish and therefore have never eaten pork. I could see the quizzical look on her face as one eyebrow lifted slightly. however she bravely moved on to the next vial. Lots of high whines ensued until the next low whine which was caffeine. Another problem as I don’t drink coffee, or tea, or coke, or anything with caffeine in .
“Are you sure?” she asked, hoping that I might have forgotten about a recent caffeine binge.
"Nope, not a drop". I answered and added "Sorry," as I felt guilty that I hadn't been drinking coffee by the bucket load. She needed to finish on a high with a safe win whine and got it with grass seeds. I do have hey fever, but then so do a lot of people.

As the test came to an end she seemed to forget the questionable results and advised that I go on a wheat free diet for one month and keep a food diary. I left the little room and entered the chemist on the way out and happened to overhear an older couple chatting about which wheat free items would be best for them. I wonder how many people with many varied ailments were advised to go on this same diet.  I tried the diet and it wasn’t as difficult as it seemed, but it made no difference to the headaches.

The diary was a help though. It identified that I have an intolerance to dairy which I never knew about before. I just thought that I was a naturally flatulent person! Cutting out cheese also seemed to help reduce the frequency of the headaches. So maybe the treatment was worth the money after all!

Migraines at a young age

I am pretty sure that I have suffered from migraines since I was a kid.  They were only self-diagnosed as such 5 years ago, but I know that I suffered with them for a long time before that.  The memory does fade slightly as to when they started.  I remember going to the doctor with my mum as a kid as I had jaw ache a lot.  Mum thought that maybe I had too many teeth all vying for space or that there was a problem with the alignment of my jaw.  The doctor we saw was a doctor from the old school.  A very old school.  He was like an old, kind, but misguided wizard.  After sitting behind his large wooded desk and listening to our story, he turned to face a plethora of ancient books, some without names, which covered the entire wall behind him (at least that's how I remember it as a kid).  From one shelf behind him he dragged out a particularly large book, blowing the dust from the top before opening the cover.  He moistened his index finger and thumb by licking them with his parched tongue, which looked as old as the books.  Peering over the top of his glasses he slowly turned the large pages.  By contrast, my current doctor googles for answers, although I am not commenting on which is the better method.

His conclusion was that I grind my jaw at night and would need a mouth guard to stop this from happening.  I knew that I wasn't grinding my jaw but was so in awe of this caricature of himself, that my mouth refused to budge from being tight shut.  Thankfully, whilst driving home, my mother listened and we never did get the mouth guard for me to wear at night to stop this mythical grinding from taking place.

Fast forward a decade or two. I can't remember getting much pain after that until I was in my 20's.  By then I just thought that I was getting headaches.  Must be too much work, or too little sleep.  The childhood jaw ache was long forgotten about.  Over the counter drugs never even dented the pain.  I wasn't the sort to go to the doctors, but in hindsight, that is exactly what I should have done.  It got to the stage where I had more days in pain than not.  I learned to deal with it and get on with my life.  I worked my way though many kooky methods to just to try and get a clear day without the pain.  Run to the top of the stairs and grab hold of the banister. Swing up and down and round and round to stretch my shoulder joints and pull out the pain.  Bang my head against the wall to knock the broken bit back into place.  I used to have an old computer where you had to hit the side of it to make it turn on.  I guess that I was applying that same logic to my head.  Needless to say, these methods never worked.

The worry was that it might be more than a simple headache.  I would analyze myself for other symptoms.  My vision was always clear, although it did hurt to re-focus from near to far.  My hearing was always clear and noise never made the pain worse or better.  No tingling in my fingers or toes.  Heart beat strong and unwavering.  Fitness level as good as it ever had been.  I was stuck in limbo, waiting for the pain to go, or something else to go wrong.  Always scared to visit the doctorsas they might tell me something that I don't want to hear.

Thus began a long and ongoing treck to find the perfect cure.  What I did do was visit alternative health experts.  I use the term expert sparingly and will explain why in my next blog...