this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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Taking a hot or cold shower, depending upon which temperature helps.
A little Lavender essential oil on the temples or back of the neck can help slightly.
I find magnesium glycinate to be helpful as well and may help yours if tension is a trigger for you.
The only medication that I've really found helpful is sumatriptan. It's more helpful stopping a migraine just as symptoms start, but can still help once a migraine develops.
A massage gun can help knock out some tension around your shoulders, as well as breathing exercises. Here's one that I find helpful. Sit up straight and tall (if you're able) and take deep tummy breaths let your tummy relax and allow the breath to go down there instead of just to your chest. After a couple breaths, feel your diaphragm (located just below your rib cage) lower as your lungs expand and raise up as you exhale, then in the next few breaths notice your neck slowly expand and contract with each breath, then turn your attention to your sinuses slightly expand and contract, and finally for the last few breaths feel the top of your head raise slightly with each breath. This should help provide a sense of calm, I like to picture that calm as either a serene place in nature or you can think of it as light. Then notice a spot on your body holding tension and lightly press it with a finger. Then imagine that same serene natural location or light entering that tense spot and take a few deep breaths. With enough mental focus putting that peaceful place into the ball of tension, it will release.
That breathing exercise doesn't immediately knock out a migraine always for me, but makes them a lot more bearable and can shorten the length of the migraine.
A roommate of mine suggested taking a prebiotic called acidophilus for nauseau and seemed to help with that symptom.
If light or screens are a trigger for you, I have found that glasses lenses with FL-41 tint to be helpful. You can find some at theraspecs and they offer both prescription and non-prescription glasses and sunglasses.
Oh, I forgot! One doctor also gave me a script to have IV magnesium and IV medication to help with migraines. It was very helpful if you can get a script and have somewhere nearby that you can go.
I second all of this, also recommend talking to your neurologist about Aimovig or other CGRP inhibitors, literally life-changing for me. 62% reduction in frequency and close to 80% reduction in severity of my migraines.
Before Aimovig, I ended up in the hospital with the worst migraine of my life. They gave me a cocktail of drugs that did absolutely fuckall for the pain and released me, just made it feel like every muscle in my body tightened up, which made the migraine pain even worse. The next day, I took sumatriptan and max dose of Tylenol, waited about 6 hours and did it again. Repeat a few more times and it got down to a manageable level, but I was out of commission for a week and a half before I felt anywhere close to normal.
I tried ubrelvy too, but it wasn't particularly effective for me
Funnily enough, I'm actually on Aimovig now. 70mg, likely looking at upping the dose. For the most part, it has been a game changer. I used to get migraines and headaches nearly daily. Now it's down to a couple times a month, typically pretty minor compared to how it's been. It's just that every now and then a particularly bad one comes in.
This may be surprising, but this isn't even the worst one I've had on Aimovig. That would have been end of February into early March, when I ended up with a migraine that lasted almost 10 days. That was brutal! They told me then that they could have given me prednisone to help break it if I had mentioned it sooner. So this time I did, and it seems to be helping. Hopefully once we up the dose of the Aimovig, these particularly nasty migraines fall off.
As for the sumatriptan...unfortunately that doesn't seem to work for me, hence the Ubrelvy which is what made us look into Aimovig as it's also a CGRP inhibitor. Typically the Ubrelvy works if I take it like you mentioned with the sumatriptan, but during these particularly nasty ones it only seems to take the edge off.
That sucks man. I started at the 70mg/ml dose and upped to 140mg/ml after about 2 months and it has been much more effective. I started in January 2022, upped the dose in March or April, then missed a dose by two weeks due to the VA's incompetence in October that knocked me out for over a week. Otherwise, been very stable. A few mild migraines in that time, but nothing nearly as bad as they used to be for a decade before I tried Aimovig.
There are tons of different triptans that can help relieve pain, hopefully you can find something that works. Hope the higher Aimovig dose works for you!
I started my Aimovig back in February I think, and we started at the lower dose to appease insurance. That has been pretty good but hopefully the 140mg dose goes well, and that insurance doesn't fight us on this. Given these few hiccups but otherwise overall dramatic improvement, I think they'll be onboard with it.
I hope so man. I went through the VA to get mine, which was its own nightmare (took 6 months to get them to approve a medication that I was already taking from my neurologist that I was seeing on private insurance (that I made sure was in the VA's network), even with an approved claim for service connected migraines and meeting their use criteria), but having dealt with my wife's insurance claims, that's a removed of a process.
Wow, a lot of things I can try here, I appreciate it! Normally I take hot showers, but trying a cold shower sounds easy enough.
The lavender sounds lovely since I like the smell anyway, so I'd be happy to give it a try! Do you have any that you would recommend?
Unfortunately sumatriptan is a no-go for me...I previously took that before I took the Ubrelvy, but it was mostly ineffective for me. The Ubrelvy typically helps, but in the most severe cases like this one it doesn't seem to. Fortunately the prednisone the doc prescribed seems to be helping, though that seems like a last resort type of thing from what I can tell due to the potential for some nasty problems.
I'll have to save this tough...there's a ton here for me to try. Thank you very much!
I like the Lavender essential oil that I bought from Whole Foods the most, as far as smell. It's not going to knock out the migraine but it does help take the edge off.
I've also used peppermint before and although it didn't help me quite as much, it has helped other people I know. The peppermint is much stronger than Lavender, so I only rub a drop of peppermint oil on the back of my neck. One time, I put peppermint on my temples and it was so overwhelming that it made my eyes water.
I hope that some of my suggestions help! Hang in there!