Hello all,

First a little background. I have been suffering from Migranes and Cluster headaches my whole life. In the last 2 years they have gotten unbearable and become very debilitating. They are very frequent, and I suffer from headaches almost daily. Some are mild and I do not take anything, some make me almost sucicidal. Cluster headaches can be unbearable. I also suffer from narcoplepsy, Insomnia and Severe Sleep Apnea. The narcoplepsy causes severe hallucinations. I ussually stay up half the night because of it. Never having a goodnights sleep is causing my pain to be much worse and much more frequent.

Anyways about 3 months ago I asked for percocet to deal with the pain. I find its a miracle drug and works wonders. It takes away the pain and allows me to get back to work. I take percocet from once every three days to every other day depending on the pain. ussually just once in a day. I have tried Imitrex, Axert, Inderal a bunch of drugs and none have worked, percocet is the only one thats helped me.

However there is one problem I have encountered, and that is tolerance. At first two percocet was extremely strong, but over the 3-4 months Ive taken them I have needed to increase it to 3 to get the same effect. Now 3 is still effective but not as much. I really would like to remedy this situation and perhaps get back down to two percocet, if that would be possible.

So I have two questions, I would be very appreciative if someone could help me out.

First... how long does it take for tolerance to drop back down again ? I am willing to take a break and deal with the pain if It would mean that I could get some relief again at some point. Also would it be possible to keep my tolerance down by spacing out my doses at longer intervals from each other ? If so what would the interval need to be ? Would four days apart be sufficient or would longer be needed ?

Secondly.. Does tolerance develop to opiods/opiates in general or does it develop to specific drugs ? For example would switching to vicodin for a while allow my percocet tolerance to decrease, and then I could switch back ? Im not sure if it works this way, as I tried three Tylenol 3's with 30mg of codiene and recieved very little analgesia or effects. I am pretty sure its because I am used to

Finally are there any long term solutions for helping to keep tolerance from forming, such as other drugs etc that will not cause other health problems ?

I am quite concerned about what I will do long term, as all my family members have migranes, and they have never disappeared. They however respond well to triptans, but I don't at all.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you
William