Urgent Care Visit

For the first time in my life I had to go to an urgent care for a migraine. It seemed to come almost out of nowhere - I took my Imitrex and a half hour later the pain was an 8 and I was throwing up. The few times in my life that this has happened before it's been later at night and I've been able to just pass out and sleep it off. Today it was 10am! So with extreme pain, and continuing to throw up, and taking a 2nd Imitrex with no effect, I went to the urgent care.

After waiting what seemed like forever they gave me a dissolvable Zofran thankfully. Then an injection of Toridol, which I'd never had before and which did almost nothing. Then an injection of Dilaudid which I'd also never had before. It was a surprisingly painful injection and gave me the shakes for about 10min, but after a half hour or so the pain was down to a "normal" migraine.

I'm still reeling and have no idea where this came from. I have not eaten any food coloring recently, and this migraine was far worse even than my "red #40" migraines. Now the pain is still here of course but it's not unbearable. So far I have been trying to drink a lot of fluids and I ate a little but I don't want to feel like crap whenever the meds wear off. What should I do? Should I take some Ibuprofen to cut the withdrawal effect?

Sorry you are struggling. I'm surprised they gave you a Zofran since usually its a two doses in 24 hours thing on Triptans, but I guess the first two probably didn't count? If you think an analgesic could help, I don't see the harm. Do you typically get a rebound pain type effect when the Triptan wears off and the migraine is still there?

I'm not as familiar with migraines as I only started getting them more recently (although I've had a constant headache for 7 years). Mine tend to be more acute so I don't notice that.

The Dilaudid is well out of your system though as that only lasts four hours or so. Toradol too after maybe 6 or 8 hours. Triptans vary though...some are longer lasting than others. Definitely ask your doctor about a non-oral Triptan and nausea meds (if you don't have them).

Zofran is my favorite nausea med...it also comes in a dissolving form. There are more options now like the dissolving pills, nasal sprays, injections, etc. Some folks have issues with the aspartame that is typically in dissolving pills, just an fyi. Hope you recover quickly. I hate that migraine hangover effect. Best wishes.

They gave me Zofran, the anti-nausea med. You might be thinking of Zomig which is another triptan. Also, Zofran has aspartame in it?! Darn it, why does almost every med need to have some sort of unnecessary ingredient which causes headaches.

It ended up turning out really well actually. I laid in bed for four hours or so and kind of slept when I got home. When I woke up, I noticed the migraine pain was starting to get worse again and took some Ibuprofen and took my Imitrex again. A half hour later my migraine is all gone! I almost didn't take it, since it would be the 3rd time today. However I considered the fact that I threw up shortly after taking the first two, and they didn't seem to help my migraine so I figured they didn't get into my system much. Also, I know that Imitrex is relatively short-lived in the body.

I have a neurologist appointment with a new doctor on the 15th. I'll need to ask him about getting a prescription for the Zofran. I have not had nausea with my migraines since I stopped eating food coloring, until now. But if it happened once it could happen again.

How scary -- I'm glad you're starting to feel better and hope you don't get one like that again, ever.