Quote:
Originally Posted by postconcussion
Hello!
Just thought I'd share a bit about my experience trying to stop rebound headaches.
After reading a couple of people here mention that they stopped pain pills I was inspired to try myself.
I have very severe headaches, which have been my main problem for the past 2 years. After the acute healing stage, I was taking usually ibuprofen or tylenol daily, usually twice a day. I still suffered and the headaches were never below a four. With exertion and toward the end of the day they can be a nine.
I was reading that it usually takes about a month for the rebound headaches to stop.
I have only done 10 days so far. The first week was sooo horrible and I had to take a tylenol twice and restart my daily count of pill free days. I was on eggshells. I did the least amount of activity possible.
I am taking magnesium and coq10 300 mg alongside my other vitamins. Supposedly it will help..
Please see this article below
http://headaches.about.com/cs/preven...coq10_prev.htm
I am taking it one day at a time because i am in a lot of pain. But, I do notice a difference in my headaches. The main difference is that the tension headache/ gripping headache is not as bad.. but the fire burning feeling is the same.
Is this nerve pain? Any opinions?
I hope to not take daily pain pills... If I can make it.. and maybe take imitrex for emergency situations. Does anyone do this?
I will update later. Sorry I have spent too much time on the computer now. Good night and thank you for any thoughts. |
When I was in the hospital following my concussion / TBI, I had severe headaches. They had me taking hydromorphone (dilaudid) 2 mg IV for 12 days. When they discharged me I was prescribed 4mg tablets. The dilaudid helped with my headaches but never stopped them. I was also taking ibuprofen. I started to see a concussion specialist neurologist who had me stop immediately and start taking tylenol and depakote as a prophylactic for headaches. He then added amiltriptyline, also as a prophylactic. He then stopped the tylenol and started tramodol for the pain. After a month and a half, he had me stop all pain relievers (which were not really helping anyway). The prophylactics help. They reduce the pain levels to a 3 or 4. I too have increased pain with any exertion, physical or mental or emotional.
Once I was off of all analgesics for 30 days, the neurologist ruled out rebound headaches. In order to prevent them, he suggests that I rotate different "families" of analgesics. I'll take Tylenol one day, ibuprofen the next and tramodol the third. I try to avoid analgesics altogether if possible. If the headache is a 3-4 I just try to gut it out. I'm in my fifth month following my TBI. I've had a headache (of differing severities) every day. A 3-4 headache seems manageable to me after having 7-9 type headaches. Hang in there and good luck.