Anyone got any tips for knocking a migraine when medicine doesn’t seem to be enough?
Anyone got any tips for knocking a migraine when medicine doesn’t seem to be enough?
Hey there!
So I’ve had a migraine that has been going for a couple days now. Nothing entirely new, but it’s frustrating. Dark room, low noise, tried sleeping it off, taken multiple medications for it including my Ubrelvy which normally knocks it. It took the edge off, but now I’m going on day 3 with the migraine with no perceivable end in sight.
Anyone got any tips that normally helps them to knock their migraine that’s worth considering? Normally I don’t care too much as I’ve put up with them for years, but this one has me all nauseous which makes it that much more miserable.
Thanks in advance!
Edit: Sorry for not seeing the responses on this sooner. I went back to bed afterward and mostly stayed in bed and holy crap the responses blew up. I also called my neurologist and told them about it much like some of the advise that others have mentioned, and they started me on a round of prednisone to help. Fingers crossed it gets rid of it. Seems to be helping, but only time will tell. If it doesn't, I'll see about giving some of these a try. Thank you so much!
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I’ve had migraines for 8+ years now. I’m fortunate enough to have free healthcare. So, I’ve been working with a neurologist for 2.5 years now.
Their advice for migraines that last longer than 24 hours is to go to the ER. The ER will give you a migraine concoction to stop the migraine in its tracks. They hook you up to a liquid drip for a couple hours and then you feel better. It’s worked some magic for me before. Each ER neuro’s concoction is a little different.
Reason for going in after 24 hours (as they’ve explained it to me), is that your body gets stuck almost reacting to itself.
(Think: Why are you hitting yourself? Why are you hitting yourself? Except, it’s your brain and it can’t stop.)
Even if you make it through this long-ass migraine (with the mentality of “mind over matter, I can handle anything”), you’ve just made yourself more susceptible to another long-ass migraine by allowing this one to last longer.
Basically, by helping your body to shorten your migraines, you’re helping to break your body’s cycle and acceptance of long migraines. You’re helping it to realize that “hitting itself” is dumb, and it stops.
Anyway - this is my understanding of it. But, I’m not a professional.
Working with my neurologist (plus loads of meds) has helped cut the length of my multi-day migraines down as well as their frequency and severity. Hope this helps you a little bit too!
So, if you can afford it, I recommend popping in to the ER for a bag or two of magic from the docs there.
If you can’t, then I recommend trying an over the counter pain medication (in addition to caffeine). If you take pain meds fairly often, then I like to switch it up, so my system has something different to try and hasn’t gotten used to it. Just remember to take the correct dosage and don’t mix with others to accidentally OD.
Unfortunately I live in the US, where healthcare is considered a luxury. I could go on a full rant about that, and in college even wrote an essay on the subject. Fortunately, my health insurance is actually decent, so I could go to the ER if I wanted.
The logic makes sense though - basically a positive feedback loop, and you need to break the loop. In this case, I called up my neurologist, who hooked me up with a round of prednisone, and that seems to be helping. I'll keep that in mind though for the future. Never thought a migraine was worth an ER visit, but hey if they can help too then why not.
Yeah, I live in the US too. I’m in the military though, so we get free healthcare. I genuinely appreciate the luxury of it and am a fierce advocate of free healthcare for the rest of the US too. I’ve spent sometime overseas and just marveled at the lack of stress other countries’ citizens have with regard to their access to healthcare. We deserve that too.
I’m so glad you have decent healthcare and access to the ER. It’s definitely worth the trip! The best metaphor I can think of is going to your aunt’s house to use her pool on a hot, summer day. You still have to do the travel (wait a little in the waiting room), and it takes a bit to get there (for the meds to work), but once you jump in the pool (once the meds actually work), it’s such a relief and well worth it.
Here’s hoping you don’t experience a migraine like this for a while though, and it just remains a tool in your tool bag!