progress
Had my appt. at the pain clinic yesterday. Made the nurses very happy with my report that the new treatment regimen is working. (They started to recruit me as their poster boy...) The doc wrote me scripts for another month's worth of the T4's plus a bunch of T3's for "rescue"/"breakthru"; changes to things like the Imitrex (- month of stabilizing my general treatment. He's of the opinion that it's taken these past couple of months for all those old meds I had been taking to get out of my system -- I don't care what or why, I just know that now I feel more energetic, positive, got my appetite back, and even when I get a headache, just a T3 &/or an Imitrex kills it. And I don't walk around feeling "almost a headache" the rest of the time. Interesting that one plant derivative can do what a whole cabinet of hoo-hah lab chemicals couldn't. For the future, can anyone tell me what dosage of OxyContin would equal my 3 T4's a day? I just have a real hard time remembering to take all three all the time (although the price is great). Then there's always the Duragesic/Fentanyl patch... Ron
T4, T3 = Tylenol #4 or #3 (Tylenol with different amounts of codeine). Yes, the first thing the doc did was take me off the Fiorinal, Valium & Ultram (the Ultram was discontinued over a month, as he said there was a possibility of seizures if stopped suddenly and, slim as that was, why take a chance). The reason I had been taking that (prn ["as needed"]) was that it took that witch's brew to have any effect. Now just the routine T4's work well enough that when I do get a migraine (or the precurser neck pain), just a T3 and/or an Imitrex spray will kill it. He had mentioned the patch as a possible long-term solution when we first started, but he is adjusting my meds very slowly and carefully, so it will be a while before we're on the final setup. I'd be happy with just switching to OxyContin (related to codeine, and I won't have to keep an eye on the clock). The next step he wants to get to is changing the Imitrex to Zomig (cause it lasts longer, and I have a history of often needing a second Imitrex dose) and trying to reduce the Zoloft (whether or not it ever gets discontinued altogether). He believes in taking the right meds, whatever they are, but not taking a whole bunch of meds if the right ones will do the job. My migraines are cervicogenic (childhood neck injury -- damaged disc c5/c6 -- messed up nerves left side of neck & down that arm) so the codeine goes straight to the cause of all my problems. This is also why all the standard chemical migraine preventatives never worked on me. Ron
Sorry, Dick -- I get the digest, so my replies are a bit out of synch. T4 & T3 = Tylenol with codeine (the numbers reflecting the different amts. of codeine). I'm just too lazy to spell them out all the time. I have cervicogenic migraines stemming from a childhood neck injury (plus years of abuse like whiplash & doing stuff I shouldn't have) -- now shows on an MRI as a crunched disc C5/C6. And EMG also showed very screwed up nerves left side of my neck and down my left arm. As I've gotten older the neck pain has become a more distinct pain from the migraines, and I can use that as a warning. None of the chemical migraine preventatives ever worked for me, because they were physically caused and not chemical. After 28 years of Fiorinal/Valium/Darvon (changed to Ultram), my new doc (anesthesiologist/chronic pain specialist) weaned me off all the old stuff and has me taking 1 T4 3x a day with T3's for breakthru pain. That plus Imitrex keeps me much better off than I've been in 40 years. He plans on fine-tuning my meds slowly, but I already feel like a genuine success story. Ron