Amitriptyline for headaches

Treatment and medication
1

Hi everyone! My name is Megan, I am fifteen, and I have been suffering from some weird symtpoms for the past seven months now. Non stop for the past seven months i have had that sort of pressure in my head that you get when you are deep underwater (I know because I am a diver!). Along with this pressure i have sharp head pains that feel like someone is pinching my brain, occasional hearing loss, clumsiness (More than usual), and also a sudden onset of forgetfulness which i never used to have before. When i first went to my doctor she diagnosed me with migraines and put me on migralief and recommended that whenever i get these "episodes" of sharp pain that i should go lie down in a quiet place. After three months on migralief, we still saw no change. Lying down and any sort of painkillers also did nothing for the pain.

I was then recommended to see and orthopedist and chiropractor, who discovered a little disalignment in my back but said it probably didnt have anything to do with the headpains. I even tried going off of gluten for three weeks and that did nothing.

Later I was sent to a neurologist who diagnosed me with tension headaces and put me on the mediation amitriptyline. It has been about six weeks now (I was told it should start helping in 2-3 weeks) taking 25mg every night for the pain and we still see no change. I have started logging in every head pain i get along with the hearing loss when i get it and have come up with no triggers. I had a weird episode of vision loss in a way that i cant really desribe but it scared me, as it was the first time it had ever happened. I'm not really sure what to do now.

Any ideas?

2

Hi Megan, my daughter suffered from migraines all through her teen years and was prescribed Amitriptyline amongst other things until she saw a neuro surgeon. He put her on Pizotifen and as long as she took them and had small meals often, she didn't have any head pain at all - the migraines ruined her GCSE's but she went on to college and is now in University and she did grow out of them. It's worth asking, they changed my daughters life x

3

Thanks so much for the advice! I will be sure to brig it up at my next neurology appointment. I will post again if anything changes.

4

If you find the migraine is very specIfic in location it might be a trapped nerve. I suffered as a child witH migraine but the ones i get as an adult have been diagnosed as a symptom of a trapped nerve. Mine is in the right temple and an episode happens in conjunction with loss of hearing, lack of feeling in the right hand side of my face and the sharp pain. Tricky to diagnose as its hard to see nerve damage. Hang on in there im sure they will pin point the cause. Amitriptyline helps loads reducing attacks from 12 a month to 3 but don't expect it to cut them out all together.