Annie,

I'm not really terribly frustrated. But I am extremely interested! If I can go off the HCTZ without causing any other problems, I think it's worth doing, to see if my MG improves.

I had an echocardiogram about ten years ago because I have a slight arhythmia which he said was benign. I don't think HCTZ is a beta blocker--just a simple diuretic.

My migraines seemed to have been caused by water retention related to my female hormone cycle. I started getting them badly about a year before I had my first noticeable MG symptoms. I had been on HCTZ previously for high blood pressure, after the birth of one of my babies, but my blood pressure normalized when I lost 50 pounds.

Man oh man, what a difference! He also put me on prophylactic ibuprofen. After the first month with no headache, I decided it was the ibuprofen that was preventing them and went off the HCTZ--wham! Awful migraine. Now I take the HCTZ and not the ibuprofen. In fact, now that I think of it, he had me taking the HCTZ only two weeks out of every month (the two weeks I was most prone to migraines). But then it stretched to three, and in the end I asked if I could just take it month-round. I just remembered that. So that's another thing that makes me think it's safe for me to quit abruptly.

Abby