Holy Cow! I may have found a triptan that works for me...RELPAX

Well, I have finally (after 20 yrs) found a good neuro. He currently has me on Midrin and Norco for breakthrough pain. I have never had any luck with any triptan, but this week he gave me a sample of Relpax to try. I was fearful at first as I have had only bad experiences with triptans in the past. He advised me to cut the pill in half and take it with two alleve, and if that didn't relieve the migraine and I wasn't experiencing any unbearable side effects, to go ahead and take the other half of the pill a half hour later. I ended up having to do this. I had some mild tightness in my chest, but it was nothing compared to what I had experienced with Imitrex, Maxalt, Frova, Migranal, and the like. It made me very sleepy and nauseated so I had to take it with a phenergan (nothing new for me with a migraine), but at that point my migraine was 80% gone. I went to bed after this and awoke completely migraine free. I am hopeful this will work with every migraine going forward, but realize this is a bit of an optomistic view. The doc gave me 2 sample pills and said if they worked to give they office a call and they would call in a full Rx for me. I did that today and though they never made it to calling it in for me, I am sure they will by tomorrow as they are generally very good about calling meds in when they say they will. I am very hopeful that maybe, just maybe, I have found an answer to these God foresaken things. I would love to be able to get back to work soon. Here's to hoping they still work and it was not just a one time fluke. I know my sis and bro-in-law take it and swear by it. Plus, the neuro has now amped up my topamax to 250 mg 2X per day plus 160 mg of Inderal for the time being (he is hoping to wean me off that as well). He actually even thinks my seizures are just very bad migraines with an aura before the seizure whereas my "typical" migraines have no aura and no seizure. Here's to hoping he's right. I just celebrated my one year grand mal seizure free anniversary on April 4. That is the longest I have ever gone without a seizure since I have been having them so we must be doing something right. So at any rate, if you haven't tried relpax, discuss it with your dr and see if it could be right for you. I was pleasantly surprised.

Relpax works for other migraine sufferers who are resistant to other triptans.
In my case, it's been a failure....
Glad to hear that you found the right one

Relpax worked wonderfully for me for many years, but it stopped being effective a couple years ago. I hope it continues to work for you for many years to come. I found it to be the best triptan of all the triptan formulations.

Becky

To needpainfreedayz: Please write your posts with short paragraphs. Without the short paragraphs it is very difficult to read, I just gave up after the first few lines.

NPFD's

Oh, that's interesting. I've been resistant to triptans too, but haven't tried Relpax. My new neuro wants me to try them at my next appt. Now I'm hopeful. Thanks for passing on your success.

And yes, please, if you could break up your paragraphs it would be very helpful. All these migraine eyes have a tough time reading blocks of text.

Hope you're having a great day,

Charlotte

Relpax (Elitriptan) is the only thing that works for migraine attacks that come on in a normal way for me. These are classic migraine with aura. It's no use taking it if I wake up with with one which is the usual thing these days. It just proves you need to take the stuff as soon as possible.

I've been assured that the tightness in the chest is not a sign that anything nasty or dangerous is happening. Sometimes it can also feel like I've had a thump on the nose for some reason.

In the days before my migraines became chronic this stuff kept me in the world with "normal" people!

Other triptans ceased to work for me but this one has lasted well. Must be coming up to 5 years now. However, it has been stressed that I must not take more than 6 a month because of the danger of rebound headaches. I was never warned about this when I was on the others and probably should have been. It might have made a difference.

Hope this makes sense. I'm having a bad couple of weeks.

Relpax has worked for me, imitrex works better though.
Zomig makes my chest very tight, it mimics very painful heartburn, or an anxiety attack. I can't really take it because of that.
I just have to reiterate what everyone else has requested, please break up your posts into short paragraphs - not to browbeat you, but because I was really interested in what you had to say, but I had to give up after the first 3 lines. It's a shame, because we might've had some similarities in our cases.
Thanks.