Triptans
I've been organizing my meds lately (I'm on an organization kick, and I seem to finally be able to at least organize my PRN meds on my iPad, that and my sleep schedule) and I came to Axert, which almost nobody has heard of. So I thought I'd tell you how I came to be taking Axert, in case it helps someone. This is just my story, I am not a doctor, and there are some serious risks associated with triptans (including drug interactions), plus weird things like it being bad to use them more than two days a week, so please talk to a doctor and don't just demand a script for the nearest triptan.
So triptans are used to abort (or lessen) a migraine in progress. They work best the moment you realize you have a migraine or migraine aura. For me there are a number of signals, the most reliable being my head involuntarily turning away from any light source. YMMV.
But the reason I'm on Axert? Each triptan is slightly different. Here's a list (first names are generic, the rest are various trade names for each one):
almotriptan -- Axert frovatriptan -- Frova rizatriptan -- Maxalt sumatriptan -- Alsuma, Imitrex, or Zecuity zolmitriptan -- Zomig naratriptan -- Amerge, Naramig eletriptan -- Relpax, Relert
Those are all the triptans on the market right now, to my knowledge (there's a couple more that were never marketed). Before I went to the headache clinic, I'd tried Maxalt and Imitrex and neither had done much good. My headache neurologist told me each person responds differently to the triptans. And that I should try every single one before giving up.
I tried every. single. triptan. on. that. list. Axert was the last and I didn't expect it to do jack shit, but it actually worked.
Unfortunately there's no sublingual version of Axert. This creates problems because I'm on a feeding tube that doesn't play well with crushed pills (j-tubes are tiny and clog easily), and anything I swallow goes into my stomach and ultimately is drained out my g-tube, being useless for actual medicines. I once put, at a doctor's insistence, liquid antibiotics into my stomach through the g-tube. I drained the g-tube 12 hours later when the nausea became unbearable... the antibiotics (clearly visible because thick and white) were still in there.
So what I do is I chew Axert into tiny pieces and stick that under my tongue until they dissolve in my spit. It tastes horrible but it does the trick, and if I can remember to take it, it definitely makes my migraines more bearable (it doesn't ever really stop them, but it makes them much better).
So "You tried a triptan and it didn't work, so triptans are useless for you" is definitely inaccurate advice even if you heard it from a doctor. I had to try every single one before I hit on one that undisputably worked (there were others where I just couldn't tell if they worked or not, most just didn't work).
