I was bouncing over to post what I learned during ...

2008-05-25T10:21:00.000-05:00

I was bouncing over to post what I learned during my law school headaches, whcih was that if you don't take the meds immediately upon the first sign, they don't work, but I see Beorn beat me to it. 'Course, they always made me sleep, so taking them on the road can be tricky.

Sorry if I'm telling you what you already know, Br...

2008-05-24T13:13:00.000-05:00

Sorry if I'm telling you what you already know, Brien, but you should keep the medication with you, especially considering the frequency with which you're experiencing pain. Most all of the migraine medications available these days are migraine aborters that work by constricting blood vessels; the most common class works by binding to serotonin receptors in blood vessels. If serotonin is already bound to the receptors, the medication can't do a whole lot to abort the headache--so if it's not taken very soon after symptoms start, or preferably even before that if you experience auras or other warning signs that you're about to have a migraine, it's not going to do much at all to help. Even when they're used properly, though, migraine aborters can take a couple of hours to kick in. Two older classes of migraine medication blood vessel constrictors of a more traditional variety (one is ergot based, so if you start thinking that people are witches, you'll know why), but they still don't work nearly as well once the blood vessels are already fully dilated.

There is a newer medication called Topamax that's designed to be a daily maintenance drug to ward off migraines, but since it won't really work at all if it's taken at the time of a migraine (i.e., it's not effective at aborting migraines), it doesn't sound like that's the drug the doc gave you.

Finally, because the serotonin system is implicated in migraine headaches, some people are prescribed antidepressants as a preventative. But again, that doesn't sound like what the doc gave you, and many antidepressants are dangerous to take with migraine-specific drugs because they can cause an excess serotonin load in your brain.

The main point, though, is to keep a supply of the pills with you wherever you go so you can take them as soon as possible when you feel a migraine kicking in. Again, sorry if I'm telling you stuff you already know. I guess I'm kind of a pharmacy nerd, but drug information always sticks in my head for some reason, and having two nurses and a doctor in my family means I'm exposed to a lot of drug information that I wouldn't know about otherwise. Good luck!!!!

Comments on Brien's Rants: The (Nearly) Ever-Present Headaches

I was bouncing over to post what I learned during ...

Sorry if I'm telling you what you already know, Br...