Hello All,
I am glad this thread is here, not glad you all suffer, but glad you all might understand because you go through it.
My hubby has suffered from migraine attacks since he was 2, he is now 44, Yes, I said 2. It is a hereditary thing in in his family. His mother gets them similar to hubby, sister gets cluster headaches, son gets migraines but only very occasionally, nephew has them like son. Niece (9) in the past 3 years is now getting them and they are very severe in other symptoms except the head pain (aura, blindness, paralysis, etc). These have all been diagnosed through very extensive testing. They all seem to get relief through different medications that have been found to work for them, all except hubby. He has had every test possible to rule out anything else over the years, to the point where he just refuses to go for another test. There is nothing worse than having excruciating pain, partical blindness, vomiting, etc. and sitting in a waiting room for hours to have a test done that always comes back as "negative".Can't really blame him there.
Here is what happens with his: He will get the rain drop effect aura and within minutes the pain hits. He wraps his head in ice, lays in bed, has to have the TV on and lights out. The triggers are weather mainly. If there is a change in barometric pressure, he plans for a migraine and gets one. If he gets too hot to fast, migraine. If he gets to hungry and waits to long in between meals, Migraine. Certain smells like a candle being blown out, he has no problem at all with the lit candle, it is only if you blow it out, migraine ( I walk outside with the candle, blow it out and leave candle outside for about an hour, no migraine.) If he goes to long with not good enough sleep, migraine. Those are about all of his triggers and they are very specific. His type of Migraines we know are Retinal Migraines. Here in lies the problem and the reason for my post and the slight hope to find someone similar. NOTHING works for his pain levels. I mean nothing. He has tried every known migraine medication on the market for both prevention and acute pain during attacks and several combinations of those. He also has no effect with any narcotics, he says " I might as well have a tic-tac". We have only been married for going on 3 years now. He has told me that medicines have no effect on him, I sort of believed him, this weekend I saw it first hand and am totally stumped and dumbfounded by this.
Here is what happened, he was playing with his niece and twisted his leg, to the point where the knee cap came off and inverted (flipped upside down and off to the side of his leg, yea, ouch!). His family put him in the car and got him to the closest ER (faster than waiting on ambulance) I got there shortly there after. They injected him with Demerol as protocol requires in this situation even though he told they Demerol didn't work. After 5 doses of that, they switched to Morphine as they were trying to reduce his pain level enough to try to pop the knee cap back into place. Well after 6 doses of Morphine, still awake, alert and in pain, they injected his knee with a numbing agent, 4 injections, he still felt when knee was lightly touched even if he wasn't looking (the Dr's and nurses were very sneaky to make sure it wasn't just a visual thing and that he really was feeling the pain still, sometimes seeing your joints all out of shape tells the brain it hurts even if area has been numbed.) They tried to reset it, he came off the bed in pain, tears coming down his face. Now mind you, my hubby is trying to hide the pain this whole time because he knows getting it back in is the only relief he will get.)
The Dr. insisted he needed more meds. (This Dr. knows my hubby and understands the migraines he has had for years.) One nurse refused to give him any more Morphine, another nurse was called in,hooked him up to telemetry, his stats were all prefect, she gave him more Morphine. After 14 full doses of Morphine and still in horrible pain, they tried conscious sedation. They gave it to him, tried to reset the knee and realized he just had his eyes closed but did not go out, he was faking it to try to get them reset the knee again. The Dr. could not get the knee in and called for a second dose of the conscious sedation, he some what went out this time but as soon as they pushed on his knee cap, his stats dropped like a rock, they stopped on the knee and the stats went right back up. The Dr. said even though he was about out, he knew hubby could still feel it. He said they had to transfer him to another hospital. Ambulance came, brought him to the big hospital, they gave him Dalidin, saying it was stronger than the Morphine. They then gave him a stronger Conscious sedation med, took two doses of that to get him out. Then the Ortho specialist tried his darnedest to get the knee cap back on, couldn't had to call in a second specialist and then hubby woke up early. The said he had to go into surgery to get the knee cap back on. No OR available. They sent him to a room where they gave him the IV Dalodin through out the night but as the Morphine from first hospital wore off, hubby's pain got worse, would not switch him back to it, they said the Dalodin was much stronger but they added Tylinox. Neither worked, the pain was about unbearable all night. I was praying that the pain would cause him to go unconscious to be honest.
. They finally got him into an OR around 9:30 am. By 10:00 they had been able to get the knee cap back on without actually cutting, so I guess that was a good thing. The anesthesiologist told me he had to give hubby almost 3 times the amount of meds for height and weight to get him and keep him out. He woke up 15 minutes after those meds were stopped, it should have taken and hour or two for him to wake up.
They sent him home with Tylinox, which is doing nothing at all for the pain.
Our regular MD has been trying to find a combo of meds to prevent Migraines so he was on some new meds that are actually for sinus problems but in a few cases has proven to prevent migraines. I don't think that med blocked anything as far as narcotics go so the only thing we can figure is that he is just plain immune to narcotics or it is tied in somehow to having migraines. Anyone else here immune to Narcotics, they have no effect on them at all? Now before anyone thinks he is some kind of addict, he is not. He stopped taking even Tylonal PM to help him sleep regularly 3 months ago. He has never, used or even tried "street" drugs. We barely drink, only occasionally socially, then again, hubby almost never does because he would need to drink almost two bottles before he even felt a relaxing effect so he says why waist the money hhahahha. They only meds he was on at the time of this accident was the prescribed meds for migraine prevention, no over the counter meds.
Anyone out there ever know of someone like this? If so, did you ever find anything that actually works on pain? He is laying here 5 days after the accident in awful pain, ice on the knee and no options. We will try about anything suggested at this point. Yes, I have already called the Dr's on call and they say there is nothing else they can do for him except the Tylinox that is not working at all. They say to bring him back to the ER where he will not go because he was already there for 2 days and they could not give him anything that worked for the pain.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Suggestions?
