Hi Everyone - I'm New so Sharing my Story

Hi there,
I've just read Tracey Wilson's story in the Daily Mail which lead me to this site and I've found it really interesting just reading other people's stories.

I've suffered with headaches for 15 years, they started when I was 14 and haven't gone away. Like many of you, much wrangling with doctors for the first 3 or 4 years lead to very little (tried many many drugs, everything from paracetomol to prozac) and culminating with a (surely very perceptive) doctor diagnosing Chronic Daily Headache... I'm fairly sure it was me who told him that...

Anyway, over the years I've been to various doctors and specialists but after 6 to 9 months of different tests and drugs, nothing ever changes and I lose heart. The headaches just carry on, every day.

However, it might be misrepresentative to keep calling them headaches because this year I saw a new neurologist who has a different theory and diagnosed Chronic Migraine. He believes I'm having migraines on such a regular basis (every other day or there abouts) my brain hasn't the time to recover before the next, leading to a constant residual headache. So, now I apparently have Chronic Migraine and Chronic Daily Headache...

Sadly, the treatment so far hasn't yielded results so this doesn't mean much. A combination of Topiramate to deal with the migraine and Amytrptyline to relieve the tension headache resulted in such appalling side effects, I'm minded to carry on coping with the headaches!

Having said that, earlier in the year I had a very frightening episode that affected my eyesight - briefly thank God - which I was told was a type of occular migraine and was warned that my migraines could be progressing and could develop into stroke-like symptoms, hence Tracey's story catching my eye ('scuse the pun).

So now I'm seeing an eye doctor who seems to have theories about the higher pressure in my right eye and we're looking at what effect this could be having on the headaches... I'll keep you updated if we have any breakthroughs...

Hello and welcome.

hmmm daily migraine is not fun - as you have read in my story.

Are the meds you mention the only ones you are taking? I ask as there is something called rebound headache - but you may already know about this.

I understand totally where you are coming from re the side effects The sad thing is, is that there is not one drug which has ever been produced just for migraine prevention - there all have been made for something else and have just shown to help with migs by accident. They also seem to effect people in different ways.

But do not loss heart - there are many out there and although it takes a lot of time, its worth pursuing a treatment plan.

There is a med called Flunarazine which is not licenced in this country, but one you should ask your neuro about - it is the only one that had any affect on my migs and was the one that gave me a break - even though it was only small - I only came off it due to the side effect of sleeping so much.

Do let us now how you get on with the eye doctor - sounds interesting.......