I’ve been taking an Amerge (naratriptan) and two Midrin twice a day since April 2015. The medications allow me to function, but have the potential to increase the frequency, severity, or duration of my migraine attacks through medication overuse headache (MOH), which is also called rebound headache. My headache specialist is aware of my medication use. We discuss its potential impact at every appointment and he reiterates that the odds of it being a problem for me are quite low. Although my history showed MOH was unlikely to be a concern for me, I was still concerned. With my doctor’s consent, I persisted taking the drugs because they were the only way I could function.
Since eating anything is my migraine trigger and no preventive medications have been able to address that issue, I feel stuck. Going off the medication is not going to stop eating from being a migraine trigger. But my last visit with my headache specialist got me thinking about the two treatments I’ve been trying this year. One is the ketogenic diet and the other I can’t tell you about yet. Both have helped a small amount, but neither has had a huge impact. They have helped enough that I don’t want to stop either one, but I’m having trouble quantifying the extent of each one. What if MOH is somehow keeping me from realizing the full benefit of either or both treatments?
What if…? When a question like that lodges itself in my mind, I have to learn the answer. My migraine medication detox began last night.
My doctor offered to admit me to the hospital to keep me comfortable through detox. I declined because I don’t think I need it. Instead, I will take Compazine (prochlorperazine) 30 minutes before meals and use an oxytocin nasal spray after the migraine attacks begin. Compazine is known as a nausea drug, but it can also help reduce migraine symptoms. Oxytocin is being studied as a potential acute migraine treatment and could also have preventive effects. If my migraine attacks take a sharp turn for the worse, I’ll add DHE or Migranal to the lineup (assuming they aren’t out of stock). I have the option of starting another preventive at the same time, but think I’m going to wait in an attempt to control variables.
If you’re reading this to learn how to do a migraine medication detox with as little pain as possible, please be aware that my treatment may not be an applicable template. For most people with MOH, going off the medications would result in horrendous pain. My symptoms and situation are different than most. Thanks to my current preventive treatments and dietary restrictions, my pain rarely gets above a 3 on a 0-10 scale. I expect that it won’t exceed a 6 even while detoxing. Fatigue and cognitive dysfunction have been more disabling than the pain for me for the last few years. Those symptoms will be bad, but as long as I can feed myself and plan to limit my work for a couple weeks, detox shouldn’t be too bad for me.
I very much want to discover that MOH has crept up on me and is keeping two somewhat effective treatments from reaching their full potential. But I’m not holding my breath. I suspect I’ll go through migraine medication detox and discover that I still have a migraine attack every time I eat. While the acute medications may be increasing my susceptibility to migraine attacks outside of eating, they are also managing the attacks I get twice a day no matter what. My best hope is that the ketogenic diet and the other treatment are far more effective than I think because MOH is hiding their efficacy. Or maybe oxytocin will provide great relief. Whatever happens, I’ll have at least one more data point to help determine what my next course of action will be.
(Pardon any typos. Editing is beyond me right now.)