New treatment is amazing

I am a healthcare professional. Yesterday at work while in ER, I had an optical aura start. I did not have any maxalt with me so I checked in at triage. Our pharmacy does not stock Maxalt subling but they had Imitrex (sumatriptan) PO. By the time I received the Imitrex, my aura was gone. This for me, if I don't have a triptan in me at the start of the aura, I am guaranteed a pounding headache / neck ache, photophobia and nausea. Sure enough the headache arrived though the imatrix did take much of the edge off but was still a 6/10 in pain. I had the privileged to work with an interest Dr. Mike Kenyon who had been running a trial using an old drug called Aminophylline which has never been used for migraine treatment before. I knew of the paper he wrote, which I showed the emergency room physician and stated I wanted to try it. This was the first time he had heard of it. He agreed to try the treatment on me.

The treatment I had 1 hour post Imitrex PO was:

100mg Aminophylline IV infused with a mini iv bag over 20 min.

ECG, BP and O2 were monitored throughout. No arrhythmia or HR change was observed.
My pain went from a 6/10 to about a 1/10 after infusion with nausea and photophobia relieved. One Tylenol 3 was enough to keep me pain free for the remainder of the evening.

The paper is located here pages 129 - 133: http://www.andrewjohnpublishing.com/images/cjim7-4.pdf

I suggest you print it off if you plan on going to ER for help aborting your migraine.

We use this medicine daily on people with heart disease. There is an increased risk of arrhythmia with coronary artery disease but you should be hooked to ECG and blood pressure monitor while receiving the infusion. The risk is very low for any negative effects, though it is up to your physician and you to decide if it is right for you. Personally I would try it.