03.10
Ok, as often seems to happen in my life if anything good happens something else (at least one something) goes haywire. I’ve been put on lexapro in addition to the zonegran and I’m FINALLY seeing some improvement in my migraines - the hormonal ones are shorter, milder and I’ve even skipped one. Mostly I’m now getting the ones with
weather shifts and as far as even my neuro knows there’s not much to do about those but stick on a preventive and keep my triptan handy.
However, suddenly - since the lexapro - I’m getting little or no aura. It’s just suddenly BAM - here’s your migraine pain. I just realized today while reaching for my Frova (stupid weather migraines) that I’m due to schedule an appointment to see my neuro. Is this something I should mention to her? I’ve ALWAYS had auras before, actually I’ve
been known to have auras without migraines - so this migraine without warning bit is really weird for me. This also means that I’m having to once again figure out what’s a migraine and when to take my med. Yuck.
Oh, and my gp is still investigating my chronic digestive whatnot. Leading candidates at this point are liver/gallbladder/pancreas (since there’s pain in that area to go with the diarrhea) and an undiagnosed food intolerance or absorption issue (apparently no one’s ever done more than the questionably accurate blood test for celiac and no one ever did the upper camera test - so those are likely - BLECH - in my future). Meanwhile, I’m supposed to drink tons of water and attempt to also get something with electrolytes like Gatorade or Smart Water till we figure this out.
Dee, I was on Lexapro for about a year. While I never get auras, I do get very depressed and irritable right before the migraine hits — this is how I know when to take my triptan. However, while on Lexapro that was completely wiped out — my first sign was head pain. It was a little tricky trying to relearn my body cues, but I did eventually realize that I still got tired and yawned a lot right before a migraine so that put me on alert that one might be on the way.
Best of luck,
Shannon
PS - I experienced horrific withdrawal when I went off of Lexapro and my neuro did not warn me that this could happen — if you Google it, you’ll find a ton on Lexapro Withdrawal. If I’d known, I would have gone off even more slowly than I did.
I know this may be unusual, but whenever I tried Lexapro, even at really teeny doses in a liquid, it GAVE me DAILY migraines. And the same happened for me with most antidepressants that I tried as preventatives. So, while that isn’t happening for you, luckily, they do change the seratonin balance, which affects our migraines—both for better, and sometimes for worse. It’s very difficult to figure this stuff out, esp when we react in unusual ways, which many of us do!!