Sunday, May 27, 2012
edensfaith
  • edensfaith
  • Location: Washington, DC, United States
  • Gender: Female
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HEALTH INTERESTS:

Migraines,  Migraine with aura,  transformed migraines,  rebound.

DRUGS I AM TAKING:

edensfaith has not shared any drug information.

ABOUT ME:

My migraines began at eight years of age, grew worse and more frequent with age (several per month) but were responsive to medications, until approximately nine years ago. Five years ago she became unable to work due to the severity of the migraines. Is retired on disability. They are now constant, retractable, and uncontrollable.

In my family, her great grandmother, grandmother, mother suffered migraine, and her daughter and granddaughter do also; her brother suffers cluster headaches.

I am a CYP2D6 poor metabolizer; this significantly restricts tolerance for medications that are metabolized lhrough the liver (see below).
She is also a Type II diabetic (diet controlled),
has Reynaud's syndrome,
Depression
IBS,
RLS,
Dystonia on left side of neck, and
Allodynia on left side of head and face.
Aortic Insufficiency - recently diagnosed while looking for PFO (patent foramen ovale)

I also experience sharp pain slightly to the left of center at the rear base of skull; this pain is constant and very tender to the touch and independent of her normal migraine and began after botox injections that took place in late 2002. This symptom is more suggestive of Neuropathy than allodynia. I've had repeated doses of botox over the years the last emg-guided, which never helped and caused many side effects.

I have used all the triptans, and a long list of other meds (anti-convulsants, anti-psychotics, blood-pressure, steroids, non-steroidal aniti-inflammatories, anit-depressants (SSRIs, tricyclics, nefazadone and other "atypicals", no MAOIs), ergotamines, opiates, etc., via mouth, nose, suppository, and injections intra-muscular and intravenous. Any one of them, at best, helped somewhat for a while before becoming ineffective; many caused very serious side effects (e.g. diabetic reactions, collapsed veins, seratonin-syndrome). Of the opiates, morphine-sulphate appears most benign, particularly in relation to my genetic renal mal-absorption problem (CYP2D6 abnormality), but even at a minimum effective and objectively low dose, leave me dopy, contra-indicated for effective sustained meditation, or put me into uneasy sleep. My fourth accupuncture session left me crying in pain. The same for my last occipital nerve block, this administered after a cocktail of morphine, and lidocaine. I've had many occipital nerve blocks as well as trigemial blocks over the years, which started out somewhat effective than ceased to do so and even became counter productive.I am looking at cranio-sacral therapy, and at propofol.
I've been to many neurologists who've just passed me to other ones and then they finally stated that they could not treat me, and sent me to the Thomas Jefferson Headache Clinic who treated me for 5 years and now I've been to new neurologists who work with pain management doctors and anesthesologists to try this new propofol treatment. This treatment has worked for me on two different occasions for over a week (a major milestone for me). Now I'm down to using morphine sulfate and MS-Contin, and still having 4 migraines a week which leave me bed-ridden, and 3 days of migraines where I can sit around doing nothing like a zombie. I'm about at the end of my rope and do not want to live like this for the rest of my life. There seems to be no hope anywhere of help.

PHOTOS:

    edensfaith has not shared any photos.

ROLES:

Living With It in Migraine

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