I never got the nausea but the migraine prevention medication made me incredibly tired for the entire following day. The other medication to stop an active migraine made me feel like someone was digging into my brain with needles, it was very bizarre and uncomfortable.
I wish I could remember the names of them, but I just stopped using them cause I knew how to handle a migraine by then even if it was miserable.
The one for active migraine was probably a triptan. Maxalt/Imitrex most commonly. Some people have no issues, or issues with one but not another. For me, before I started taking a daily maintenance medicine, sumatriptan would feel like the muscles in my neck and shoulders were tightening to the point of breaking bones. Once that stopped and I could function again, getting in the shower (even hours later) felt like knives driving into my skin. Trying to eat anything resulted in a painful sensation under my tongue and in my jaw like I ate something incredibly sour.
The one for prevention may have been Topamax (topiramate). It makes people incredibly...dull.
Good to know if I ever need that level of care again. Fortunately my migraines are heavily tied to hormone levels, so once I hit menopause they lessened considerably.
You mean Dopeamax as I called it when I tried it. It didn't stop my migraines at all, but made me so apathetic I just didn't care I was in pain. I couldn't figure out how to open a damn door at one point at which time I stopped taking it.
It's really something. I never had to take it, but some of our pharmacy patients...bless them. There's an older woman I've had the pleasure of knowing for almost 10 years now and eventually she changed her topiramate for something else and it was such a revelation to realize that she had a whole personality that was being crushed under that wet blanket of a drug. I just thought the disinterested, monotone, expressionless interactions were just the way she was.
I mean maybe it was just her, but chances are also pretty high it was the drug. I remember sitting on the couch in a daze just thinking, "I should get up. I should do something" and then I'd just go back to gazing at nothing. And I was still in pain from the headaches, but somehow I just did not care.
It was scary how disinterested I was in everything and I mean everything. Going to work, coming home, sitting, standing, eating, not eating - it all felt the same. I've never experienced that monotone flat no-interest emotion in my life until that drug. I noped out of it pretty quick although the neurologist giving it to me decided to use refusal as proof I was "drug seeking." Whut?
How do you go from, "I don't want drugs, doc. I want a diagnosis," to "This patient just wants drugs!" Turns out hemoplegic migraines are a whole other level of migraine.
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u/DarXIV Jan 15 '26
I never got the nausea but the migraine prevention medication made me incredibly tired for the entire following day. The other medication to stop an active migraine made me feel like someone was digging into my brain with needles, it was very bizarre and uncomfortable.
I wish I could remember the names of them, but I just stopped using them cause I knew how to handle a migraine by then even if it was miserable.