Withdrawal Blues

TheGaudyMagpie

I'm tapering off of a migraine preventive that is messing with me now. The withdrawal has been pretty brutal and I'm not sure if I've gained a lot of weight or if my water retention is way off (the drug is nortriptyline, which can mess with ADH). The good news is that it's because the nerve ablation I had in November seems to have mostly cured my chronic migraines. I still get hormonal headaches, but not enough to need to take a daily preventive.

I still weigh less than I did when I started this whole process, and it's nice to look forward to next year when I won't have the med side effects messing with me. I'm just kind of over getting off of this drug (a month to taper off and then however long after it takes my body to get over the w/d). The primary symptom is constant nausea, which one would think would cause weight loss instead of gain, but I find myself eating whatever I can whenever I can. I'm not sure I would have started the med had I known how hard it is to go off of it, but probably I would have. It did help a lot with pain.

Anyone else go off of nortrip or amitriptyline and have tips to share?

Sabine_Stroehm

I have nothing to offer, except my wishes for you to have a smooth transition off!

tcunbeliever

Getting rid of meat and wheat keeps me from having migraines - I used to get them monthly, then weekly, then daily until I adjusted my diet. Just an idea, in case you are interested in experimenting to see if it helps you.

Sabine_Stroehm

tcunbeliever wrote: »

Getting rid of meat and wheat keeps me from having migraines - I used to get them monthly, then weekly, then daily until I adjusted my diet. Just an idea, in case you are interested in experimenting to see if it helps you.

That's interesting. Meat? All meat? Or red meat?

TheGaudyMagpie

I very rarely get migraines now so I don't need solutions to avoid them. The nerve ablation was meant to treat neck pain but I have had almost no headaches since -- just the one I always get at the beginning of my cycle, but I don't have super regular cycles now. This is consistent with some of the newer theories of migraine as a nerve disorder rather than vascular. Many migraineurs have triggers. Yours may have been meat, or perhaps you have an intolerance to meat, which is not unknown. Meat is also often high in histamines, which women our age can sometimes have problems clearing and that could also trigger migraines. Histamine intolerance is often resolved by avoiding high histamine foods for awhile, and then they can usually be tolerated in moderation (I've found low histamine diets helpful and they all exclude anything but fresh white meat).

My problem is with the med withdrawal. That said, I'm feeling better with the physical symptoms like nausea. Having a lot of aphasia and other neuro symptoms now (I just hit the point where the last higher dose should be out of my system and I'm on a very low dose now). Neurotriptyline is given for a lot of pain disorders, but there's not a ton of info out there about how to cope with the known withdrawal symptoms. Some patients are just advised to stay on it, but I'm not into taking meds I don't need.

tcunbeliever

@Sabine_Stroehm - all land animals (beef, pork, chicken, goat, deer, etc), so far swordfish is the only water animal that has triggered a migraine all other fish and shrimp, crab, etc have been ok for me to eat.

And for extra weird - chicken eggs (even organic ones) trigger a migraine, but I have recently been able to eat duck eggs without a problem.

Sabine_Stroehm

tcunbeliever wrote: »

@Sabine_Stroehm - all land animals (beef, pork, chicken, goat, deer, etc), so far swordfish is the only water animal that has triggered a migraine all other fish and shrimp, crab, etc have been ok for me to eat.

And for extra weird - chicken eggs (even organic ones) trigger a migraine, but I have recently been able to eat duck eggs without a problem.

Wow, that's fascinating. I've heard many folks have a hard time with processed meats, and some from red meat. What chemical do you suppose it is in land animals?

TheGaudyMagpie

I'd look into histamine intolerance, based on that list. Egg whites can trigger a histamine reaction in some people. It may be that duck eggs trigger less of a reaction, and it may also be that your histamine levels have dropped enough to be able to tolerate some things you might not have been able to before.