A Warning to users of Excedrin!!

2009-09-03T21:09:00.002-07:00

I started this blog in the hopes of saving others from the living hell that I have come to know as Transformed Migraines.

It all started with a few headaches a week from the stresses of school. Nothing seemed to work except for Excedrin migraine - at first. Eventually one pill every 3-4 days became one to two pills a day, and now I suffer from chronic daily headaches, also known as transformed migraines.

According to healthcentral.com:

Patients with Transformed Migraine often share these characteristics:

A history of episodic Migraine beginning in their teens or twenties.
Most are women, 90% of whom have a history of Migraine with aura.
Medication overuse.

The process of transformation is often characterized by:

Migraine attacks that became more frequent over a period of months or years.
These attacks were accompanied by phonophobia, photophobia, and nausea, but these symptoms became less severe and less frequent.

Characteristics of Transformed Migraine:

A pattern of daily or almost daily headaches that seem to be a mixture of tension-type headaches and Migraine attacks.
Pain that drops in severity to mild to moderate.
Pain isn't always accompanied by phonophobia, photophobia, or nausea.
Other Migraine symptoms may persist including unilateral pain, gastrointestinal symptoms, and aggravation by other triggers.

My Story

2009-09-03T21:09:00.001-07:00

After suffering from what i believed were sinus headaches occurring 4-5 days of the week, i finally went to my doctor. I jokingly told her I had been needing to take so many Excedrin migraine pills a week that I was afraid of what my liver looked like. The look on her face wasn't good, more of a very deeply worried kind of look.

She said I know what is wrong. You are suffering from a phenomena called 'rebound headaches.'

For some reason, even if the Excedrin wasn't working, i still would take it. And this had been going on for about 3 months.

I asked for a CT scan of my sinuses anyway because why else would they be hurting then? It turned out they were slightly inflamed and I was prescribed an antibiotic to take for 10 days. Even while I was on the antibiotic, i was still having headaches which lead both the Dr. and I to realize that my sinuses weren't what was causing the problem.

After i went home after my CT scan I immediately threw out all my Excedrin pills and didn't take a thing for the pain. I needed to "detox." For two days straight I had one of the worst headaches I have ever had. I thought I was going to die from the pain. Eventually it had to pass right? I mean once it's out of my system that is it, right?

Nope.

After 4 more weeks of daily, constant headaches I asked my Dr. if she could do something for the pain. She prescribed me Imitrex because what I was describing sounded pretty much like your typical migraine. But you only get 9 pills in a prescription to take at the start of a migraine. And i wasn't having full blown migraines. Most of my headaches would range from mild to moderate and sometimes they would be a severe migraine, but it was in no way a migraine everyday with the flashing lights and vomiting.

After a few more days of chronic pain, i called my doctor back yet again and asked her to refer me to a neurologist. Having a headache for a few days, let alone a few weeks is NOT good. Something was wrong.

The neurologist was quick to diagnose me with migraines. I didn't buy it. Usually people with migraines had headache problems as a young child, starting at age 7 or 8. But not me. I never had a problem with headaches. No one in my family had a problem with headaches. And besides, my headaches started abruptly only 5 weeks ago, coincidentally around the SAME TIME I STOPPED TAKING EXCEDRIN.

The neurologist prescribed me amitriptyline, and told me to come back in 6 weeks. 6 weeks??

I stopped taking my birth control pills because maybe my headaches were hormone related.

Nope.

I would drink water all day. Maybe i was dehydrated.

Nope.

I stopped eating carbs. Maybe I developed a sudden allergy to them.

Nope.

At this point I had become extremely depressed, crying every night when the pain was the worse. I wanted to die. Literally.

I called my neurologist a week later (forget waiting 6 weeks, i was in a living HELL) and demanded to have an MRI done of my brain. I couldn't bare to live one more day without an answer. I swear I had a tumor or meningitis or one of those pseudo cerebrithings. I even wanted my MRI to come back positive so there would be a known reason for having such excruciating headaches. How sick is that?!?

Two days later I get a call back from another neurologist on duty (mine was on vacation for labor day, how convenient of course!). I grilled him for 30 minutes with the list of questions I have come up with while researching and researching for answers on the stupid internet. He said my MRI came back negative and that I indeed had migraines.

WHAT?? I still don't buy it.

If I did blood work, would it show something? No.

Do I have high blood pressure? No.

Is it my birth control pills that I have been taking for 8 years giving me problems after all this time? Most likely not.

Well what the hell is wrong with me?? Migraines don't just come out of no where and last for 4 weeks?!

Will a chiropractor help? No.

So, what is the next step then? He prescribed me prednisone and told me to continue taking my amitriptyline.

Well, I went to a chiropractor anyway. And she realigned my neck which was pretty stiff and out of whack. Sometimes misalignments in the spine can cause headaches. I was willing to try anything at this point. I still had a mild headache that day but it started later than usual. So I took an Imitrex. I can't deal with the pain anymore!

Latest Update and Conclusion to my Story:
My Doctor prescribed me Prednisone, which is a steroid, to help break the cycle and it made my headaches stop completely after two days. I felt wonderful, I couldn't even believe it. I thought I was going to have to live with these headaches for the rest of my life from the damage I had done with the overuse of excedrin. The steroids gave me a ravenous appetite so I gained some weight, but anything was better than having to deal with the pain. As of now, my appetite has stabilized and my weight is back to normal, more or less.

So the Prednisone worked for me. I did the tapered dose where i started with 3 pills for 3 days, then 2 pills for 2 days, then 1 pill for the remainder until it was gone.

I am now currently still on a low dose of amitriptyline, which is a preventative, and I will remain on it indefinitely since I really like it and I am not having any side effects. I also still have my Imitrex to take as an abortive in case of an emergency, but since my almost 12 week episode of transformed migraines, I have only had to take 1 Imitrex because I discovered that red-40, that dye they put in certain foods and drinks like gatorade/kool-aid was a migraine trigger.

I have now been headache free, even of minor ones, for over 2 months now and I am hopeful my transformed migraines are gone for good. :)

Think Twice and be Careful

2009-09-03T21:01:00.000-07:00

Pain relievers may offer quick relief for occasional headaches. But there's a limit. If you find yourself taking pain medication more than two or three days a week, you may actually be contributing to your headaches rather than easing them. It's a cycle known as rebound headaches.

The cycle starts when you take too much headache medication — more than the label instructs or your doctor prescribes. Soon, your body adapts to the medication. You may not even realize that you've been dosing yourself too often until you miss a day and your head starts to hurt again — sometimes more intensely than before.

So please be careful when taking common medications such as aspirin, acetaminophen (Tylenol, others) and ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin, others). And especially Excedrin.

EXCEDRIN MIGRAINE GAVE ME TRANSFORMED MIGRAINES!

A Warning to users of Excedrin!!

My Story

Think Twice and be Careful