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that I haven’t had to “doctor shop” around; in fact, I’ve had the same PCP for 18 years, and the same neurologist for 4
years now. Here’s the strategy that I used. Once I’d spent 3.5 years trying all of the “normal” migraine preventatives and rescue meds, and following the “migraine rules”, and I still had constant pain 7×24, I sat down with my neurologist and said “we both know that being in constant pain, regardless of its source, is not good for a person. It raises blood
pressure and stress hormone levels. It isn’t good for a person psychologically; contributes to depression, etc. We’ve been trying to treat this according to the migraine rules for 3.5 years now; when are we going to actually start treating my pain?”. After that discussion, it took 2 more months of last-ditch trying to get the “migraine protocol” stuff to help,
and once it didn’t, then we went ahead and started treating me like a chronic pain patient instead of a migraine patient. And it has made a world of difference; my pain levels are down averaging about 2-3 now, instead of averaging 6-8.
Do a little research on chronic pain (not specifically migraines), and the effect that having untreated or under-treated chronic pain has on you, and then present that information to your doctor (of course he/she should already know this stuff, but they may not be looking at it that way because “it’s in your head”). From my research, if you inadequately treat your episodic pain and then it turns chronic, then it’s much harder to treat. If any of you are still having episodic migraines, please, please treat them as aggressively as you and your doctor can; to try to prevent having them turn chronic.
Take care!
Ive been in the unfortunate boat of being treated at military facilities where even if i found a decent doctor, they moved six months later! Ive had some really aweful ones! Without going into my whole saga lol.. the difference really was the doctor.. I found a civilian PCM who wont be transfering lol.. who understands my situation, looked at my history and said ‘Okay this is what youve tried already”.. and a civilian neuro, who did the same thing.. so even though i ahvent had my doctor for five years, they took my five years of treatment into account when chosing my current treatment plan. There is a certain point when a patient has no relief that i think its the merciful thing to do, like you mentioned to your doctor.. Its inhumane to leave someone in pain 24/7.. from the doctors perspective of course they do have to try other treatments and see if they can prevent them. Im very hopeful that in my case, the fibromyalgia may be the key and if we can reduce the symptoms from that it may help the migraines too. Cross your fingers for me..
