fewer migrines

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Welcome again,

I used depakote for a couple of years.  It did work, but during that time I gained nearly 40 pounds.  I then found out that weight gain is a side effect of the drug.  That was about the time that Topamax was approved for migraine usage...  My neurologist switched me to Topamax; since then I have lost about 10 pounds a year, happily more than 40 pounds now--and find that Topamax is even more effective for my headache control.  On both frequency and severity.  Which is wonderful inasmuch as I am in the 2 to 5 times a week category, with some lasting 3 days, and also having a variant of cluster headache.  My saving grace is that, although I often have the nausea, I am saved the vomiting aspect of our mutual disease. 

 I have the aura, dizziness, stabbing, electric drill, head in a vise, unable to be around florescent lights, white or bright cloudy days, humidity, or rapid barometric changes.  I walk into walls, speak the wrong words, or cannot find the words to speak at all.  My vision narrows or almost leaves.  I get freezing cold and break out in bumps.   Wine with too much tannin is out of the question,  I've gotten so that I can smell it...  That is more the problem than color.  So very old reds are drinkable.  I find that for whites, pinot grigio is the best, much better than chardonnay;  pinot grigio is great, and also tends to be relatively inexpensive--even better!

I've had these headaches since I was 8 years old--am now 61.  Unlike many women who get better with age, my headaches have gottensteadily worse in the last 15 years.  And this is from someone who was once upon a time in a study on the ability to withstand pain; and I was 

Regarding amitriptyline:  If it works for you, super...  For me, I found that it just dried me out...  and made relations with my husband...  shall we say... painful...     Amitriptyline is primarily an antidepressive, and an old-line drug.  My doctor has prescribed effexor for me, which has many fewer side effects.  Effexor is primarily an anti-anxiety medicine, secondarily an anti-depressive.  Anxiety, like stress, is a migraine trigger for most of us.  You might want to discuss this medicine with your doctor.  It has been really successful for me.

Also,  I'm sure that you know that the daily preventive meds that we take work best, perhaps even only, when we do not take the abortive, or attack, medicines like Excedrin and Fiorinol and the Triptans.  But sometimes we just have no choice.  I find that I am doing better now that I have been able to avoid the latter meds--but it is hard to do so all the time.  I still take them when the need is there--just less often.

Good luck to you--and to all of us who commiserate together!