Drugs. How do they work?

ive been out with this menstral mig one of the joys of being female!!

mini, i agree we all need compassion for eachother and whilst we, our neuros and gps dont all all agree at least lets be polite heerlady!

ive been out with this menstral mig one of the joys of being female!!

Oh I am so very sorry!
Hormonal M were always the worst for me.
Even my drugs had a hard time to knock these off. But they did, after appmx 8 -10 hrs.
Without them I would be out cold vomiting, in agonizing pain for good 24hrs, sometimes 48hrs and longer.

How about you? What relieves your menstrual M? and how effectively?


Risa

i now get occipital nerve blocks every 8 weeks. and when the inj has worn off i have imigran inj to give in my leg till i get my next inj. betwen me and my father and 5 siblings who get migs weve tried every drug alternaive or otherwise on the market. my father died from medication sclerosis of the liver from mig meds.

ive been offered a nerve stimulator to be put in but turned it down as i think the simplest is the best.
i was getting moh from 28x 600mg ibuprofen/week otc about 3 years a go then detoxed and tried different triptans and now get the head injs that have changed life for me and my little family.

Mini & Dawn B - I stand by my statements. I qualified them and if you don't like what I have to say, tough. We are entitled to our own opinions and I will not tolerate being called names because you disagree with me.

I'm not being heartless, I grew up poor and still am to a degree. I feel that unless you have a good reason, a person should be working. Migraines or any other disability for that matter qualify as a good reason.

As a matter of clarity HL, I did not call you heartless, I called your opinions heartless - there is a basic difference. You are entitled to your opinon, but it is not very kind.
I am not in a habit of calling people names.

So I guess now our friends from overseas have a much better idea of why our healthcare system is as it is, having heard the different viewpoints of both Heelerlady and myself. This pretty much sums up the debate here in the US leaving us with a stalemate in Congress, escalating costs, and no hope in sight for reasonable strategies to stop the spiraling debt. I'll be fine. But those working for minimum wage (or even 4x minimum wage) will continue to fall behind. Particularly as inflation kicks in as the dollar continues to fall.

Back to the subject of this forum. I recently had the opportunity to talk with a woman who is the president of the International Association for the Study of Pain. This is the professional association for those who do treatment and research into pain. I asked her what the current research was on treatments for chronic pain. She said that they were finding that they really needed better methods for being able to match individuals to specific drugs because there was such wide variability in how efficiently they metabolized opiods and other drugs. So what might seem like a high dose for someone is really just that their body is not as efficient at processing the drug (and vice versa). I was quite encouraged to hear that they are working on this problem rather than just trying to paint everyone with one brush. Someday hopefully they will have better methods for targeting the right drug to each person, with much less fear of drug overuse by some and under medication for others who need it.

One of Anna's doctors, (the pain doctor!) is a leader (nationally) in trying to come up with new and innovative methods for treating pain. Thank goodness for docs like him. He works closely with Medtronic, which is based in our state. He is successfully treating patients with intractable head pain with the intrathecal pain pump.

One of the psychologists in his practice told us there is hope that a new and effective solution for intractable pain will come in Anna's lifetime. So even though things are grim now, there is hope for a better future because of advancements in this field of medicine.

Cheryl

my father died from medication sclerosis of the liver from mig meds.

I am very sorry about your father, Dawn. This is very tragic and sad, and I am sorry for your loss.

I have no idea what your father was taking, so I am not making the following no judgment about him in no way,
just general observation about what causes failure of the liver.

(I however am stumped about "medication sclerosis" term. There is no such thing.
I think perhaps you mean
Cirrhosis of the Liver.)

In most cases, cirrhosis of the liver is caused by alcoholism.

The most common medication cause of the cirrhosis is usually paracetamol and salicylates.
Even so, one must either consume it in excessive quantities or have an unusual reaction to it.

here's and excellent article about cirrhosis of the liver

http://www.medicinenet.com/cirrhosis/article.htm#tocb

and here is the list of the drugs that may cause the damage to the liver

http://www.hepcnet.net/drugsandliverdamage.html

You may notice Ibuprofen is on the list, whereas oxycodon is not. I am not saying it's safe, just safer.

Considering your father died of the Liver failure, I would rethink your position on narcotic pain relief.
As you can see here yourself, nothing is black and white.

On one hand, taking OTC indeed theoretically could save you from possible- not given, just possible - addiction - you don't have to develop it if you are responsible - on the other it may damage your liver faster.

On the other - taking narcotic pain relief may save your liver, because after all you may need a lot less of a narcotic medication because it is way more potent, and you may use a lot less of it than you would need i.e. Ibuprofen. Just an example.

I am glad things you choose are working for you - do they? how effective are they? How long on average your M episode lasts?

Risa

This is appaling Cleuless - to jump to conslusion and to accuse someone's father of alcoholism, just because you do not understand one word, is to cause deliberate offence. Totally unacceptable.

It is obvious that you do not like Dawn, most likely becasue she is from uk and becasue she makes sense. You reasoning is that if she is upset enough, she leaves the forum, this is what you want - a clear case of your interent bullying.

To say, without knowing the full facts of the case and about someone's father, that:
... cirrhosis of the liver is caused by alcoholism.
is deliberately meant to offend.
.
Any alcoholism is only in your imagination, Clueless and you say it, because you want to offend.

Nothing in previous posts could justify such accusations - Dawn made it clear that her father's liver condition was caused by all the medicines taken over the years of migraine.
So you make up this story, to upset her, and you need to make it offensive.
You know, that to say such things about someone' father who is no longer alive would be very distressing, But it is your aim is to cause as much upset, as possible to make her leave the forum - this is how internet bullies act.

Bullies often make great show of pretence of being helpful and sympathetic then use this, as an excuse to cause more distress to a bullied person - this is low, even for Clueless.

clueless the sclerosis was caused by his medication and the medical term was non alcoholic sclrosis as he was a very religious man and wouldnt even have alcohol at communion. asc hildren we couldnt even eat wine gum sweets the consultant said it was from the medication but i dont have a list of the medication he took.

getting migraines from age 14 in 1943 i dead to think of what type of meds they treated it with an as all the new ones came he tried them out.

but alcohol...hes have personlly smashed every bottle and closed every pub!!

thats why im so hot on getting people to get their livers checked regularly if they take meds.

clueless the sclerosis was caused by his medication and the medical term was non alcoholic sclrosis

Dawn, please don't pay any attention to Mini, she does that on purpose, she just wants to create controversy -
- she is well known for that, she lives for stirring cr*p up.
Just a minute ago she accused HeelerLady of being heartless then quickly denied it pretending she only accused her "opinion" as being heartless, didn't she?

So, never mind Mini and her see-through manipulations, nobody is that stupid as to not see what she is up to.


As I pointed out, the explanation about what is the Cirrhosis of the Liver wasn't about your father,
it was about what causes the cirrhosis itself.
I thought for clarity purposes I will just state that fact what is the most common cause of it,
and wasn't thinking how it may look like, I am sorry,
but in no way I was accusing your father of being an alcoholic. It was just an unfortunate expression.

You did pointed out the liver failure your late father suffered was caused by medication,
and I since in the article it was clearly mentioned as another true and possible cause of cirrhosis, what reason I had not to believe you?

I do however owe you an apology for denying the term "sclerosis of the liver" - today I dig deeper on the 'net,
and found out indeed it exist, and it means the same as "cirrhosis" - I don't know why nothing came up when
I was researching yesterday.
Obviously it was stupid and rude of me to assume you wouldn't know what your father passed away of - I am very sorry.

Now, I wanted to tell you my personal story why I believe going into either extreme with meds is never good.
I suffer from M as long as I remember, meaning early childhood, but they turned truly evil when I was 25,
and came to Canada.
Then the usual medication which so far worked always very well all of a sudden stopped working.
I was dumbfounded, and terrified - I couldn't even get the pain under control, and was in agonizing pain.

The doctor told me I suffer from migraine, and Rx Fiorinal C1/2 which is a combination of aspirin, butalbital, codeine and caffeine.
Somebody in my family whom I told what I am going to take for my M pain went bonkers about "that's how the drug addiction starts" and scared me off Fiorinal C1/2 quite effectively.

I sure didn't want to end up a wild eye, mouth frothy junkie standing at the corner turning tricks to get my next fix.

So instead I took humongous amounts of Excedrin and plain aspirin, as nothing else wouldn't even touch the pain
but these two hardly even touch it, also.
So, desperate for relief I was taking it by handfuls.

Then after a while I started having black stools. I ignored that because I didn't knew what does that mean. Besides meantime I got an anemia, and I knew Iron supplement can turn your poop black. I must have been bleeding for a while to get anemia.

Strangely, I never had any bad stomach pains when I was getting that ulcer. Just constant diarrhea.
I already had pre- ulcer stage of duodenum and was bleeding from my guts somewhere when it was showed on my Occult test.


The moral - I would have been much better off if I stick with Fiorinal C1/2.

That's what I needed to stop and control the pain, not equivalent of Tic-Tacs which only caused me a lifetime
of gastrointestinal problems and many years of ulcer pain. I needed to listen to my dr, not a 'bug eyed'
family member

Now, I am very limited in my choice of pain medication as I can't take any of NSAID-s, even if wanted to as they can be effective for lesser pains.

So, again, don't knock narcotic pain relief just because they are narcotics. Sometimes, they are a better choice than non- narcotics.

Risa

Wow Risa,
Even though we have been on this forum together quite a few years now, i didnt know all of that about you.
Your experience ties in with what they told me at the hospital for the pain assessment.

The right medication in the right quantities and at the beginning of our problems...
Then as they said, might not be a need for pain control programmes....

So sorry what happened to you. It could have been so different.

We have so much suffering with this awful disease.
People just dont realise how lucky they are if they dont have migraine....

I have had a lousy week. I think the party and then the 3 hour assessment and waiting in the freezing cold for 25 minutes,
after the hot hospital......

I have taken 4 Triptans this week. That is way more than usual for me.
But they do work (albeit it slowly and not great), and I just couldnt stand the pain.
I am not happy about it, but I remember they also told me.
DONT UNDER MEDICATE. Dont let pain be your master....

I am hoping and praying tomorrow might be better.
Its 4.5 below here and heading for 1am, so I will say goodnight.
I hate to sleep, because that is when the pain comes back, but I cant stay awake all night.

Night.
Pen

thank you for your apology clueless. i reply was in reference only to your post about alcohol destroying the liver not minis post.

my father would probably have lived longer if hed drank alcohol than taken the migraine meds!!

I wonder if could do me a favour Dawn, and read carefully what I said above, and then please tell me, if there is anything in my previous post, that could be upsetting you - I would certainlyy hate that, because I would never wish to cause you any distresst Dawn, since I value your opinions and your contributions here.

When I read what Clueless said about sclerosis and things about your father, I was truly appaled by such lack of respect as much as her ignorance when she said that: "medication sclerosis" term. There is no such thing. ", becasue she knows! This arrogant statement was followed by more offensive accusations, untilI someone had to make a protest about her behaviour.

I am now glad I did, since as a result of my protest she was forced to check her facts, and to apologise for her offensive behaviour.
I only hope that her apology is genuine - but only time will show.

Hope that your head is all right today, and all your roads are freer of snow and ice.

I am so glad you appreciate Dawn and her contributions Mini.
That means you must appreciate me. I brought her here....

We have no snow yet, but some is forecast for tonight.
I hope it doesnt come.
I have been in since Wednesday last week with unrelenting migraine.
I so need to get out of the house...

Pen

I am now glad I did, since as a result of my protest she was forced to check her facts,

Don't flatter yourself. I checked my facts because Dawn wrote " the medical term was non alcoholic sclrosis", and that got me thinking- Dawn must obviously have know what her father died of since she
had an access to his medical history. That's why I checked out this term again.

Risa

my father would probably have lived longer if hed drank alcohol than taken the migraine meds!!

If that is OK with you Dawn, would you mind to disclose what kind of meds was your late father taking for his migraines? I am curious what in the older times was commonly Rx for them, and if narcotics were more freely
prescribed, or not as today. that would be interesting to know.
But of course, I will understand if you do not wish to share something like that, totally understand.

Risa

mini, there was nothing to offend me in your post and actually it helped me as the post about my fathers death was hurtful but is now forgiven !

clueless there were many meds hed been on and tried and later years of his migraines it was just triptans. i did consider copying his death certificate on here to rove whent the dr signed but thought no it is too personal, too soon and too painful still.

as to my injecs yes they work wonders i know the occ nerve block doesnt for everyone but for me it does and the leg inj of imigran works in 20 mins but the side effects as it works can be scary as your chest and throat constricts and can be panicky!!

the only mig that nothing works for is the menstral one, all meds bounce off it. its hell!

Thank you for your response Dawn - I would not want to cause any distress.
- I am glad that at least you've received apology for so much hurt that clueless has caused.
I am not so glad that the "third degree" about the whole subject is still continuing - how are you supposed to know, all kind of medicines that your father had, over a long lifetime of migraines?

After all, even such easily accessible painkiller like paracetamol, which is available everywhere and in every supermarket, can cause some serious liver damage if accidentally taken too soon after the last dose, or increased by small ammount.
How are you supposed to know, what, or when anyone takes for their pain over the years of suffering, and disorientation caused by migraines.

As I suspected Clueless apologies meant nothing, she is like the dog with the bone, she will just not let go...Give it a rest, clueless, stop hurting people. Find yourself something better to do!


I was interested to read Dawn, that you get a strange sensation and worrying chest discomfort with Imitrex.
I take mine orally but also get this sensation only sometimes, but when it happened recently I was really scared: I had no idea what it was, I felt almost faint and had to lie down, I could hardly breathe.
It passed fairly quickly, and only then I realised what it was. I alsot wonder why it happens only from time to time? And what is causing it at some times, and not at other times. I could not bear it, if it was every time. How often do you get this chest problem.

mini, thanks for the post!

get the chest and throat constrictions and tingling in my face with every injection but it only lasts about 20 mins max it is frightening as you say, i just have the telly on to distract me and never have it in im looking after our son. it always brings back the memories of my stroke 9 years ago so im always glad once its passed!!

I am so sorry you get it so often, it must be a worry indeed specially if you have your son to look after at the same time. WE just battle on I suppose and do what we need to do.

Funny we should talk about it today; because aftery busy weekend with most of my family here (which was great BTW, but much cooking and exitement was involved, so today I am tired and some h/a reappeared) all this morning I have been wondering if I should take Imigran or not, but I am worried in case I get this bad reaction it is most unpleasant. I wish we did not need to take all these medicines with their bad side effects.

I have been taking Imigran for so many years and it was great for me but now I need to stop and think before taking it, as I worry it might happen again. I was also offered the nerve injection, but with all the bad weather I decided to wait with the final booking for now. I just do not feel like getting out of the house in case I have to cancel due to weather conditions etc.

It is obvious that Clueless is worried about her liver.
But, if she is worried because she suspects that she takes too many medicines, she should be talking to her own doctor, instead of troubling other people by asking rude and unwelcome questions which are likely to cause more pain since they concern someone's relative who is no longer here to answer them.

Of course, Clueless can easily have a check for her liver, there are simple test for that, unless her real aim in returning with more, and more questions is just too cause even more upset in the hope that the person will leave the forum.