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Welcome to the Zomig Forum

I took Zomig for about 4-5 months and it worked extremely well for me. It was the first triptan that I took that did not work once and never again. I tried not to take it more that once a week, because I was afraid of MOH, but I was in a cycle of about 5 migraines a week and I was alternating the Zomig with Ketorolac injections, and I had a definitive limit on how many of this shots I could take each month, which I think at the time was 3. I also had IM injections of Demerol I could use if neither of those worked which I used at least twice a month. It was a very bad 4-5 month period, but between the 3 medications, I could handle the migraines and concomitant pain. My biggest problem was that I was always recovering from one or another treatment of the migraine and I was exhausted all the time.

All of this worked well until it stopped working, which was pretty much all at the same time. The Demerol started giving me rebound headaches, much worse that the migraines, and I had to just wait those out, so that became a useless drug. The Ketorolac, instead of getting rid of the migraine in 15 minutes started to take 30 minutes, then and hour, then 4 hours, then not at all. Finally the Zomig stopped working as well in much the same fashion.

After the Zomig stopped, there was only one more triptan in the group left to try, and that was Axert, which is what I am on now, and have been taking for about a month. It works pretty well if I don’t take it more than once a week, or preferable once every 2 weeks. That leaves me with 8 or 9 migraines to deal with by myself with no other alternative. I am not a real fan of Triptans really.

hangingbyathread – Your experience isn’t as atypical as I wish it was I’m afraid.

I’m Migraining myself right now, so I hope I understood everything you were saying, but I do have a couple questions that it would be helpful to have answered. The answers may create more questions that you might find helpful to take to your physician for re-evaluation.

Have you talked to your doctor about the potential that you may be in MOH?

It honestly sounds to me like you need to talk to your doctor about the potential that you might be in MOH. Your experience sounds typical of many of the more difficult patients who start out doing everything as they should, but are driven to begin a series of uses of medications that – together – end up putting the patient into MOH. When this happens the patient typically becomes refractory to almost everything and a pattern of daily headache begins to be the norm. Unfortunately, alternating medications that can themselves cause MOH doesn’t stop the brain from changing and MOH to become a problem. It seems that alternating them would be the thing to do, doesn’t it?! From what I understand, the brain doesn’t see much of a difference between the different meds and the changes that lead to MOH occur despite the patient’s best efforts. You might say that the treatment *backfires*.

This leaves the patient feeling completely overwhelmed and wondering “What in the world am I gonna do now?!”

Are you currently taking any preventives, and have you ever had any success with them? Has your doctor re-evaluated you recently? Are you seeing a headache specialist?

I would love to know if you have ever had any success with IV treatments of any kind – steroids, magnesium, valproic acid? Have you had a conversation with your doctor about utilizing these options which do not contribute to MOH?