Chronic Migraine Awareness

Written by Jennifer Ross, Tanya L Stewart and Kristen Estep

Jennifer was truly kind to share her experience with migraine and medication with us. She states she lives with chronic migraine and has some level of migraine pain every day for 44 years.  Migraine disease has progressed over her lifetime and she is now disabled by it.  Jennifer has tried nearly every option (preventative, abortive treatments and procedures) to treat migraine disease and continues to use massage, chiropractic care, diet changes, supplements, homeopathy, meditation, and art to name a few.  Some medication helped for years, particularly when she was living with episodic migraine. Eventually, however, each just stopped working and she searched for more options to help reduce the pain.

When the CGRP medications became available, Jennifer was quite excited and tried all three preventatives.  Aimovig made helped things a bit, but she struggled with adverse side effects. She is now getting Vyepti infusions every three months, with fewer side effects. Jennifer reports she has overall less intense daily migraine attacks and hasn’t had to go to the ER in two years. Thrilled to hear about the new abortive CGRP medications that were released this year.  Jennifer tried Reyvow first and it was one of the worst acute medications she has ever tried. For Jennifer, the terrible side effects only lasted for several hours, it didn’t help with the pain, just made her feel “drunk”. She had trouble walking, felt queasy, and very sleepy.  Jennifer does find Nurtec somewhat helpful, and reports she is not a CGRP super responder. She looks forward to the day when there are new medications that “actually target the etiology of migraine disease better!”

Our next contributor had a significantly better experience with Reyvow. Tanya wrote to me with her review of the medication.

“A couple of days ago I had an appointment with my pain management doctor that I see for chronic migraine. As I was waiting in the waiting room, I just so happened upon an article about a new drug called Reyvow I thought I would discuss it with my doctor. I was pleasantly surprised that she had heard of it and even offered me a sample pack of it. Well, I had to take one last night because of the weather here in Florida. To everyone else it is gorgeous but to someone who lives with migraine disease the weather variations are difficult to handle. I was advised by my doctor no driving and I might just want to sleep off the pill once taking it.

I took Reyvow and within 20 minutes my body felt heavy and my brain felt loopy. It was about bedtime, so I headed to bed. I can tell you within an hour my intense migraine, that I had all day was gone! This morning I woke up with no side effects.”

People living with chronic migraine get excited and hopeful when new medications are released.  Our responses to the medications are as different as our experiences with migraine disease. It is a frustrating disease as we each experience migraine attacks differently and there is no cure for migraine. Hopefully in the future we will see more medications that help more of us and a cure in our lifetime.

*DISCLAIMER* Chronic Migraine Awareness, Inc. does not endorse the use of any product, medication, or treatment. The statements in this article are from a person who has tried this medication and their personal results. Your physician should be contacted for medical advice.