The migraines did not go away: I just began to feel that writing the blog was keeping the problem more alive than it should be. Since June 2007, I've had fairly regular migraines despite taking tight control of the diet, and the sleepless nights have been fairly common in the absence of amitriptyline. The only medication which offers any headache relief remains co-codamol. A couple of weeks ago I had a really bad classic migraine which left my left arm feeling numb for several hours and worried me sufficiently to go and see my GP. She refererred me to a neurologist and the appointment came through for last Sunday a.m.
The self-proclaimed headache specialist gave me a thorough check-up, and wanted an account of the progress of the migraines since they started at the age of 12. He turned out to be a fan of amitriptyline and anti codeine-containing analgesics. I haven't got his letter summarising the diagnosis and treatment yet but the first thing he wanted to do was to get me off co-codamol. Even at the rate of no more that 4 tablets per migraine, and a migraine every 7-10 days, he suspected that I had become dependent on the codeine and was suffering from codeine withdrawal symptons after a week without any. The new regime will involve a three week course of an NSAID to allow coming off codeine without too much pain, a doubling of the ulcer-preventative to stop the NSAID aggravating the ulcer problem, and then a new anti-migraine prophylactic in conjunction with a minimal dose of amitriptylene to improve sleeping. I'll provide the details when I get the letter.
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