<<I thought caffeine (coffee) was supposed to help migraines migraines. Caffeine constricts blood vessels and one of the problems with migraines is dilated blood vessels.>>
That's right. If you are at the right stage in a migraine, in which the vessels are expanding in preparation for exploding your head completely, the caffeine can nip the process in the bud and abort the headache. I think that's why the miracle Airport Almond Joy worked. And my usual first tier med, Fiorinal, has as one of its ingredients, caffeine.
But if you don't have a headache and drink coffee, the constriction starts a headache; it's followed by expansion.
Even decaf can trigger a headache, so I really think there must be something bad in coffee besides caffeine. Though even decaf has some caffeine in it. Tea, too, is a no no.
<<<I've got a suspicion I also get migraines too, though.
>>>
I've read, and was told by a headache-specialist neurologist, that if you start getting one kind of headache, you can end up with a number of interacting kinds. The simplest example is that a migraine triggers tension headaches, and a tension headache makes you susceptible to a migraine. I know that's a statement of fact and not an explanation, but it's surely true. On the occasional time when Imitrex hasn't done anything, I assume that that headache was some other kind. (It's rare, though, that neither fiorinal, fiorinal w codeine, or imitrex will work. Thank god.)
Ultram, tylenol with codeine, or oxycodone are pretty useless against a migraine. They can dull it a little for a couple of hours but it's still there, and returns full force. Fiorinal or Imitrex end it and you rarely have to repeat the dose.
Trigeminal neuralgia is supposed to be terribly painful. I hope you don't get those very often. The pain is also different from vascular pain of the migraine type, i've heard (and there are different kinds of migraines; i, for example, don't get the classic flashing lights and barfing symptoms) so if you are getting really bad headaches that seem different from the TN ones, maybe you should try a different med for them..? |
