Migraines

For almost a year I was blissfully migraine free.....

I have always suffered with headaches, I always say since 12 as I remember taking some paracetamol on my way to school prior to having a horrible headache in a French lesson in my first year at secondary school. As I got older they got worse and by the time I went to University I was regularly having headaches which disrupted my life. One summer holiday I went to my GP who advised that what I was describing sounded like migraines and prescribed a prophylactic medication (not sure what). When I went back to Uni my GP there took me off both the prophylactic and the contraceptive pill.

Whilst on my placement year at British Airways 2001/02) I worked out that I generally had migraines when I had eaten dairy products so went more or less dairy free - reducing the number of migraines I was having significantly.

Nothing really helped the migraines but when I had one I would generally be able to sleep them off until in 2004 suddenly nothing would help and a migraine ran into the next day and caused me to be unable to go to work (ambulance service). I went to my GP, who was very helpful and reassuring and I was prescribed sumatriptan (Imigran).

With the sumatriptan and my eventual completely dairy free diet I managed my migraines successfully until January 2007 when I had the relapse that led to my MS diagnosis in May 2007. After that things just progressed. I went from taking approximately 12 sumatriptan tablets a year to taking almost 12 in a month by 2008. Eventually I discussed the migraines with my neurologist and MS Nurse and was offered a prophylactic medication. I didn't take up the offer until things got silly in approx September 2008.

I started on topiramate and then tried amitriptyline, neither of which helped (although amitriptyline is great for sleeping!!). Propranolol was the next drug. I started on 160mg with no benefit but once I was on 320mg a day I stopped having migraines - wonderful! I had a couple over the year but it was such a relief to stop having 2 or 3 a week......

Before Christmas I had a few migraines but I put that down to overindulging, now things have continued and I have used 6 sumatriptan tablets since I picked up a new prescription mid January. It is sooo disappointing to be having migraines again especially as the migraines are more intrusive than my MS..... So the questions are - does the efficacy of propranolol as a migraine prophylactic wear off and has anything changed?

I don't seem to be able to find the answer to my first question, however my second one I considered this morning and thought of something. Up to just before Christmas I used to drink at least 1 can of coke zero a day, maybe 2, now I drink caffeine free diet coke almost exclusively and don't have any other drinks with caffeine in them. I am now going to start drinking coke zero again and see what happens - maybe stopping so suddenly caused a reaction, maybe the caffeine helps the propranolol work - I hope it'll help anyway.......