What do you do when Medication Stops Working?
When medication doesn’t work anymore, I take a medication vacation. Several times a year, my medication stops working.
To begin with, preventative medications give me terrible side effects. It took me YEARS to find the right medication for me. I have been on and off Botox for years, with different results each time. I’ve also found good results from CGRP medication like Aimovig. And with rescue medication, sometimes it works, other times it seems to make me sick, the next time it may work but wear off early. I never know. And we all react so differently!
What do you do when Medication Stops Working?
I use a ton of natural therapies to treat myself and also get a variety of results
- Massage
- Acupuncture
- Sauna
- Epsom salt baths
- Ice therapy
- Restorative Exercise
- Heat therapy
The trigger, pain level, and situation depend on how much relief I get from natural products.
- Lotions
- Essential Oils and diffuser
- Drinks
- Vitamins
- Foods
- Glasses
- Smelling beads
- Lots of water
Abortive medication is taken to decrease a migraine or eliminate one that exists.
- Imitrex
- Zomig
- Frova
- Treximet
- Relpax
- Amerge
- Maxalt
Here’s the dilemma with abortive medications. I can only take them so many times per month. When I have daily headaches and chronic migraine, it isn’t easy to judge when to take them. After taking my medication, it usually works.
Occasionally, all of my medication stops working. I take my abortive, use natural therapies and products, use everything as directed, and nothing works! I seem to get into a cycle that will not break no matter what!
Taking too many pain relievers causes rebound migraines, so I am careful not to over-medicate. The problem is that I get to a point where everything stops working, and I need to suffer. After battling for days and days and fighting every way, I know how I finally gave up. I get to a point where I give in to the constant migraine and wait it out. At that point, I stop poisoning my body with medications that aren’t responding to my body, and I try to sleep it off till I can function again. I run out of options and wait it out.
Am I the only one who goes through this?
What do you do when the medication stops working?
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I’ve had that happen a few times. I’ve never come up with a magic cure, I’ve just had to suffer through hell for a few days to let my body “reset” so to speak. It’s horrible and I am sorry you are going through it. Light and love to you.
Thanks. A reset for sure.
You aren’t alone. Meds stop working on me or will suddenly have new side effects.
What do I do? Talk to my doctor. Use anything I can. Maybe pray a little. ????????
Every now and then, even though I get botox for migraines, something triggers one, and then I take the preventative one (or is actually one you take when the headache starts?), anyway, I also found that whatever pain relievers I take, do nothing for migraines. So I do yoga daily (for headaches)….there’s plenty to choose from on youtube so you don’t have to join a gym. I find that the exercises they teach to relieve headaches, gives me a lot of relief. I think one has to do it daily though, because for those of us who suffer from migraines, we just never know when they’ll strike. I hope this info helps you a bit? xx
I like yoga too. I do a mixture of yoga, Pilates & ballet. Barre class has helped a lot.
Wow, you seem to be doing everything you can! and yet they still come. I find it astonishing that scientists still have no idea what causes migraines? Or I believe we’d have some good meds to stop them. I hope you’re not in pain today x x
It’s a never ending story for me. Have a pain free day,thanks for your comments 🙂
This hapoens to me too. I just tough it out and suck it up. Luckily for me I found Scenar Therapy, which offers some relief and I now have my own home device which really helps manage the pain. My doctor will sign me out of work when I need the break to cope snd knowing that really helps too, though I really dislike leaving people down.
I hate feeling like I let people down too. What’s scenar therapy? I’m glad you have a good relationship with your doctor. Sounds like you have a plan even if it requires “sucking it up!”
If I’ve had a series of small non-“catastrophic” migraines a big one will eventually show up, and I’ll be so tired of taking my abortive meds (I don’t take preventatives other than ibuprofen) that I’ll stupidly try to delay saying “Oh, this one won’t be so bad..” That my ‘cocktail’ won’t touch it. Or I’ll have some small mini-melts as I call them then a huge one where I’m certain my brain is trying to eat itself one neuron at a time. I think of it as my brain needs to have a full on tantrum so it can get it out of its system and be done with it for a while. At this point I honestly just double up my full three sedative cocktail (Vicoprofen {Hydrocodone w/ Ibuprofen instead of Tylenol} for the pain, Cyclobenzaprine {Flexeril} for the muscle tension and spasms, and Promethazine for the nausea {which is way less since I cut out the tylenol}) and wait for the drugs to knock me under so I can sleep it off.