I just got back from an 8 month follow-up appointment with my neurologist and he has prescribed blood pressure meds to reduce my headaches.
I wanted to know if anyone else has tried this or if they have even heard of it. Its been about 6 days since I started the BP meds and it seems to be working but it could be our good friend placebo taking effect.
My blood pressure is perfect but the doctor says by reducing my bp a little it may allow the capillaries in the brain to heal a little more and then I can reduce the daily tylenol regimine and then when I come off the bp medicine the headaches will stop and the tylenol (@6 a day currently) will not be necessary.
I haven't had any tylenol in two days.
Anyone have any thoughts.
That's interesting as I have had a headache down one side of my brain for 11 years now since a near fatal attack of viral meningitis. My neurologist told me that painkillers only work for 3 or 4 days then the brain gets used to them and stops producing endorphins so when they wear off its worse. This was certainly my experience. My BP is pretty low as I am a long distance triathlete (Half Ironman) but I'd be willing to give this a try. My doctor prescribed amitryptaline for the headache which is taken at night but just left me like a zombie for the next day. Really hope this works for you.
The doctor put me on verapomil and the normal dose is 3x a day for whatever mg's he gave me, but he wanted me to start with one pill a day for the first week and then bump up to two pills and then a full dose to see how it works and check on side effects.
After one week I have been two complete days without a tylenol. This is after a normal course of about 6-8 a day. Yesteday, my head hurt a few times but never enough to demand a tylenol.
My BP is really low as well(120/80), probably nowhere near as low as a triathlete's but the idea of this is to see if it works for me without lowering my BP very much and then as soon as I don't need the tylenol anymore, come off the BP meds.
Neurologist told me this is a treatment for migraines but usually, the 5th or 6th option for migraines. I don't have migraines but the headaches I described to him sounded like the capillaries were causing pressure on places in the brain that were not used to it and that's what was causing me pain.
I think it would be worth a try for you.