9 Month Migraine 24 Hours/Day

Posted By Chris on January 27, 1999 at 13:06:57:







My wife has similar situation to an archived posting about a long term headache following a lumbar puncture ad blood patches, in her case a myelogram. However, her symptom is a migraine with nausea, photophobia and other typical migraine symptoms 24 hours per day since March 18, 1998. The neurologists have prescribed various medication protocals, including bilateral occipital nerve blocks and hospitalization for thorazine and DHE treatments, without any relief.  Now she is undergoing withdrawal from her current medicines in a pain clinic while undergoing pain managment training.  First, will this migraine ever go away and any guess at how long it will take?.  What was the outcome of the archived posting "Can a Blood Patch Cause a Headache" (1997) (may not be the exact title).  I assume from the archived posting that morphine was helping this patient, but in my wife's case morphine only "took the edge off" same for dilaudid.  She only took them for a short time and was most recently on Duragesic patch, serzone and depakote.  She is more than happy to get off the medications even with the pain.  Her migraine is located primarily in the base of her head and radiating up the back of the head.  The pain is a steady pressure like pain not throbbing. Activity does tend to make it worse, but it is not positional. Over the past few weeks the pain became more intense and covered more of her head. The Duragesic (100ug/hr)patch took the edge off in the beginning, but was not offering any relief before she was admitted to the pain clinic. Her MRI, CT and Cisternogram should nothing.  CSF pressure was 11, considered by the doctor to be within the normal range.  Her current course of treatment is a two week withdrawl (withdrawal) period, pain managment training and start sansirt (sansert?).  Any suggestions?  I can give you a more detailed case history or her doctors' phone numbers.  Thank you.