Author Topic: migraines and beta blockers  (Read 919 times)

migraines and beta blockers
« on: 10 July, 2014, 01:50:52 pm »
I've been getting migraines since my early 20's. My mum also gets them so I think it's in my genes.

They used to be only a couple of times a year and two days feeling sick in a darkened room solved the problem. It was still a nuisance and it was suggested I saw a chiropractor which I started in 2009.

Between 2009 and last year I didn't have a single migraine (I'm still seeing a chiropractor on a monthly basis). Last year they started again and are now much more frequent. I'm only just starting to keep a log but seem to have had four since March - which again is not massively inconvenient except at the time and I've taken a day off work on each occasion and worse than that I can't ride my bike!!

In March I was given Triptan tablets (or something similar) and they seem to fight the migraine at the early symptom stages (blurred vision, tingling fingers) but I still take a day off work each time.

Yesterday my GP suggested I take beta blockers twice daily for an indefinite period to see if it works. Just wondered on other peoples experience of this as I'm not really keen on taking tablets every day for the rest of my life (I'm 35)?
Duct tape is magic and should be worshipped

vorsprung

  • Opposites Attract
    • Audaxing
Re: migraines and beta blockers
« Reply #1 on: 10 July, 2014, 01:59:35 pm »
You should try the beta blockers.  But I don't think you will like the side effects.

Mrs V uses Zomig to stop the migraines, it works for her.  But everyone is different with migraines, it seems

Zipperhead

  • The cyclist formerly known as Big Helga
Re: migraines and beta blockers
« Reply #2 on: 10 July, 2014, 02:26:03 pm »
I've been on beta blockers for a couple of years now for migraines. I think the worst side effect was the nightmares for a month when I started them - I'd wake up in the middle of the room screaming. Mind you, I've always been prone to nightmares.

Do they work? Well I've only had a couple this year, instead of two or three every month - but that may be because I've been diagnosed as suffering from epilepsy, and it looks like that was the cause of most of my migraines.

The neurologist has suggested that when the epilepsy is under control that I stop taking the beta blockers and see if the migraines stay away.

[edited to add]
My cruising speed is down by about 10 or 15% since I started taking the BB's.
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Pancho

  • لَا أَعْبُدُ مَا تَعْبُدُونَ
Re: migraines and beta blockers
« Reply #3 on: 10 July, 2014, 09:54:26 pm »
I went to my quack with a pile of symptoms (basically some sort of nervous exhaustion) and he reckoned it caused (or resulted from?) v high blood pressure. He sent me away with a packet of beta-blockers. One of the doc's questions was "do you get headaches?". "Nope" I replied.

After a month on the pills I realised I was no longer eating a couple of brace of ibruprofen every day. The dull daily headaches had been so constant i'd forgotten about them until confronted with a cupboard full of uneaten painkillers.

I also (since boyhood), get a couple of times a year a proper power-headache. Utterly incapacitating. No cure - just a blacked out room to lie in and down the most powerful painkillers I can lay my hands on (co-something (prescription grade) being the pill of choice). Not had one of these since i started on the beta-blockers and I'm very much due one.

Re: migraines and beta blockers
« Reply #4 on: 11 July, 2014, 04:16:41 pm »
Interesting reading, thanks
Duct tape is magic and should be worshipped