my own medical history

[pantryslut]

This is mostly a note to myself, before I forget this. More fun stuff to follow soon.

The anti-migraine drugs I was put on as an adolescent were not muscle relaxants, as I've believed for about 20 years now, but one of the ergot derivatives. Fortunately they worked (and when I say worked, I mean that after about a week of taking it, I didn't have any more headaches until my 20's), because my doctor failed to tell anyone about the rebound effect.

Comments

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you didn't have a problem with rebound. Ergot drugs have a higher risk of rebound than muscle relaxants, but rebound effects have been reported for all anti-migraine drugs ever used. The really important risk factors are:
is the patient vulnerable to rebound? (some bodies get rebound headaches much more easily than others.)
how often is the drug being taken? (less frequent use is much less of a rebound risk)

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

I was taking it every day, 'cuz I was getting headaches like clockwork, fifteen minutes after school started. So it would have been nice to know about the rebound risk.

I haven't taken any prescription migraine drugs since, because two Excedrin and a can of Coke seems to do the trick these days.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Some people are more vulnerable to rebound effects than others. And it's only a concern if you're using headache meds frequently. (When you had daily headaches every morning, I would suspect you had rebound headaches then. Or that you were allergic to something in your school environment or morning routine that was triggering your migraines.) But frequent use of Excedrin is suspected of causing rebound headaches in a lot of people, so you should be careful about overuse.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

We did indeed suspect allergies or something similar, but the headaches ceased so suddenly I now suspect it was something else. I think I wasn't clear about the progression of my migraines and treatment thereof.

I suddenly started getting severe headaches for no readily apparent reason about fifteen minutes after school started in the late winter/early spring of 8th grade. Nothing had changed at school or home in terms of environment, so we coudn't pinpoint a likely allergen; at this point in time, I'd bet it was adolescent hormonal changes (I started my period a few months later).

I went to the doctor and he gave me the ergot derivative. I took it for a week. It immediately relieved the headaches (though not the vertigo, sigh), and after taking it once a day for about a week, I stopped getting headaches entirely. For about ten years.

Nowadays, I get a migraine maybe once a month on average. So I'm not worried about Excedrin rebound.