I would be migraine free if I could take a triptan every night before bed, is this not recommended?

Hi daily migraine gal,

No, it is not recommended to take triptans every night before band. Triptans were developed to abort the Migraine process, not prevent it. So they should be taken at the first sign of a Migraine attack, not to prevent one.

When we wake with Migraines, many times it has to do with sleep issues - poor quality of sleep, too much or too little sleep. You may want to talk to your doctor about a sleep study. We have a video that helps explain things you can take a look at that here: Video: Migraines and Sleep.

Transformed Migraine Related To Sleep Problems has more good information for you. 

And taking Migraine abortive meds such as triptans or any kind of pain med more than two days a week, may be medication overuse headache (MOH), aka rebound. See Medication Overuse Headache - When the Remedy Backfires for more information on this. If you're in an MOH situation, nothing you take is going work, neither prescription nor "natural" medications nor over-the-counter. If that's the case, you need to work with your doctor to stop the medications causing the problem.

I hope this helps,

Nancy

Hi there,

There are two main reasons that daily triptans are not recommended:

1) Medication overuse headache, which Nancy explained.

2) Since these medications are meant for occasional use, there has been and probably will not be any research on the effects of taking them daily.

Teri