Migraines

[oddairman]

What treatments are people getting for migraines and at what hospital? I am looking for something different maybe alternative therapies that the VA will pay for like acupuncture.

[justrluk]

It depends on your triggers. Have you identified them? Mine are due to TBI. My neuro mentioned this and I'm going to persue. I take daily meds, 2X/day,

[oddairman]

Yes, I have id the triggers. But sometimes. hmmmmm they just come on.

[sleeper692]

I have migraines that come in waves and are quite debilitating. Avoiding triggers such as stress, bright light, and loud noise is the first step.

I've been on damn near every medication that is available for prevention of migraines. Unfortunately I've not tolerated any of them and I am starting to lean on non-medical treatments. I still have success beating back a migraine with naproxen NA and sumatriptan but I risk serotonin syndrome due to my high dose of zoloft every time I take sumatriptan.

I just got started with weekly yoga classes and a weekly acupuncture clinic. Both of these are free to veterans in my community. Ask your doctors or the folks at your local clinic as they may have info on free or reduced fee yoga and acupuncture where you live. They might even have such classes or clinics at your VAMC.

I can't vouch for the efficacy of the yoga or acupuncture on my headaches or other symptoms yet since I've only started but they can't be any worse than the toxic soup of medications the VA doctors try to ram down my throat. If nothing else they get me out of the house and I get to meet other veterans.

One of the other things that has greatly helped me avoid migraines is getting a good night's sleep. My docs sent me to a sleep study where they found I have obstructive sleep apnea. They issued me a CPAP machine and, other than getting used to the damn thing, it has improved the quality of my sleep tremendously. I'm also on prazosin which is an alpha blocker and has almost completely stopped the nightmares I was experiencing nightly. I have found that getting proper sleep has cut my migraine attacks in half. I used to wake up already deep into a migraine. Since I've started on the CPAP 6 months ago I've only had one morning migraine which is just amazing considering I was losing an average of 2 days a week simply waking up already in distress!

Diet is another thing I pay attention to. Eating in a reasonably healthy manner and not imbibing in lots of alcohol helps too.

Ultimately, I think you will not find one easy cure-all for your migraines. It takes a concerted effort on many fronts to prevent migraines and every little bit helps!

Pete