Coming out of Denial!

[Moniwaller]

Hi All

Apologies for the long post!

After reading a zillion posts on migraine sites I thought I would give my two pence worth! For the past two years I have suffered nearly everyday with a migraine. Its always behind my eyes, (eyeballs feel like they have weights on them) and the left side of my neck, in addition to moving across and around my head throughout the day. I wake up each morning with it, and it never ever lifts. I come from a family of female sufferers and watched and listened to my mothers and aunts horror stories and experiencs with various drugs for many years growing up. This led me to not only denying my own pain but resisting any kind of drugs being terrified of what I witnessed as a child with the every continuing cycles of drugs and treatments undertaken by my dear mum and aunts over 30 years. Today I gave in, I finally let myself admit I am not only suffering badly but am very very depressed about it. I have no life anymore, I drag myself to work and sleep whenever I am not at work, praying daily that the pain will lift. I began using triptans to relieve the pain at its worst but this quckly became a daily cycle of use, in addition to paracetemol and ibuprofen. In my effort to avoid any dependancy on preventatives, I was practically addicted to abortives, that had very litte effect on the migraines. So as I said, today I gave in and broke down in my Nurologists office! (not a pretty sight from a 49 year old grown woman!) So I have now just had a nerve block, and have Candesartan to try should the nerve block not give me relief. I feel better simply by coming out of denial! I am pretty convinced its all hormone related, (dropping oestrogen in perimenapause) and am, when I have the energy! furious at the lack of research. 30 years after watching my mother go through years of hell, the treatments seem to have change little.

Anyhoo I just wanted to say my story thus far, and I am happy to keep people posted with how I progress on both the nerve block and Candesartan. For now though, three hours post injection (which was very scary and odd, but did not hurt at all) the pain behind my eyes has for the first time in two years (and I am not kidding!) has lifted. I can write this post without squinting and pain. The back of my neck is killing me, I feel like I have slept funny or pulled something, but thus far, that is preferable to the behind-the-eye pain I am used to. I dare not hope to much that this will help, but I will let you know

Thank you for reading, listening and telling all your stories, they have informed and comforted me over these past months and I hope I can reciprocate with my experience

Moni

[bobbybobb]

where was the nerve block inserted and what sort of nerve block was it .

[Moniwaller in reply to bobbybobb]

I don’t know what type it was, if you google occipital nerve block for

Migraine it’s basically that, it’s a local aenasthetic plus a steroid inserted into the most tender spot at the base of the skull. I had it on the left and they generally do it

On the side where your migraines stem from. For me all of my pain is behind my eyes and down the left side of my neck, the block I think does something to the pain pathways but if you google it there’s loads of info. Hope that helps

[babs1234]

My nerve block gave me relief for 3 days. Good luck

[Aundrea]

Hi

I’m like you at the moment depressed with having daily migraines and suffering from anxiety 😪 I had enough and have got referred back to the neurologist which is going to be a long wait. I asked my doctor about candesartan As my friend who is also a sufferer has been put on it and she swears by it. But he could not prescribe it and it needs to come from the consultant. So his given me sumatriptan for when I get my aura migraines. Let me know how you get on.

Thanks