what if the worsening heahaches aren't migraines? how we we find out who can check to see if it is s
Migraine diagnosis but nothing helps. These last 3+ days. Our 17 year old daught has miss more than half of the school year now due to these and they are getting worse. She takes Stadol, 200 mil Imitrex, 400 mil Ibuprophen, 400 mil of Topamax, vistril and elavil, along with her asthma and allergy medications. We already had he 2 weeks ago yesterday at the ER ti get phenegran and demerol shots to get them to go away. cold it be her thryoid, or her pitutuary ? She has three buldging discs in her cervical spine and three in her thorasic spine that have developed over the last 14 months too. We need help!
Pam,
Migraine is a genetic neurological disease. Is there any history of Migraine, "sick headaches," or "sinus headaches" on either side of the family? Migraines have other symptoms in addition to headache, but you didn't mention if your daughter has other symptoms.
How long has she been taking Topamax and Elavil? It can take up to three month for them to kick in. On Topamax, the doctors who performed the clinical trials for Migraine suggest that it be tapered down and discontinued if 200mg doesn't help.
If your daughter is taking the Stadil, ibuprofen, or Imitrex more than two or three days a week, part of the problem may well 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. If that's the case, you need to work with your doctor to stop the medications causing the problem.
If you're unsure of her diagnosis, and it sounds as if you are, or if her doctor can't find effective treatments, I suggest you take her to an actual Migraine specialist. At 17, there's no need to look for a pediatric specialist. Take a look at the article Migraine and Headache Specialists - What's So Special? If you need help finding a Migraine specialist, check our listing of Patient Recommended Migraine and Headache Specialists.
I know you and your daughter are going through a rough time. If you'd like some additional support, come join our discussion forum. You'll need to register again once there because it's a separate membership database, but you can use the same member name, email address, and password that you used here. You can find our forum at http://forums.healthcentral.com/discussion/migraine/forums.
Hope this helps!
Teri
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