Hey Brea,
I totally get where you are, as I have a migraine that has been getting worse for the past several hours. My main pain feels like somebody put an ice pick behind my right eye. The pain radiates all over the right side of my head. I'll probably end up in the ER before morning. Maxalt never did me a darn bit of good in stopping my migraines. You may be making yourself worse, though, because you should never take a "triptan" more than two times a week. Anymore than that can and probably is giving you "rebound headaches", which turns into a vicious cycle.
Hopefulmigrainer, you may also be having the same vicious cycle of "rebound headaches", since Imitrex is also a "triptan" and shouldn't be taken more than twice a week.
Unfortunately, during my 33 years of migraines (started at age 8, but didn't get treatment until 13), "triptans" don't work for me. Most do nothing, like Maxalt, or make me violently ill, like Imitrex. I'd rather have the migraine than the Imitrex. I started on a combo of meds. Flexeril, a muscle relaxer - I'd get knots behind my right ear, then jabbing pains in my head. I would also take Fiorinol w/codeine for the pain. This worked for a fairly long time, then in college, I added Toradol to the mix. This combo stopped working, and then I started down the long road of trying every other drug used for migraines.
After I had surgery five years ago, I found that the pain medication, Lortab, also worked for my migraines. I took this for several years, while my doctors and I tried every medicine we could find trying to find a "preventative" and an "abortive". I never could find an adequate preventative, so my migraines got worse and worse over the years. I found that Stadol Nasal Spray, a narcotic, would abort my migraines, provided I had access to it right when the symptoms started. Many times I would wake up in the middle of the night or morning with a blaring migraine. At this point, not even the Lortab could curb the pain, so I started having to get Nubain/Phenergan shots to get rid of the migraine. At the ER I had to get Dilaudid/Phenergan. Several narcotics don't work on me, like I'm really resistant to Morphine, and Demoral doesn't effect me at all. My current clinic decided that I was taking too many narcotics, and cut me off cold turkey. I was told that I was being referred to a "pain clinic" which was actually a "detox center." It has been almost three months, and I never got scheduled for an appointment, and I guess by now, they figure I'm all detoxed. I saw my regular doctor and she prescribed Ultram for me again, although it didn't work the first time I tried it, and isn't working now. I saw a migraine specialist at the Neurology Institute of Southwest Virginia, who couldn't help me, but referred me to the University of Virginia Medical Center. I've already had two appointments with the Pain Center, who are trying out steroid injections in the occular nerves in my skull. I'm being referred by them to a migraine specialist in the Neurology Department. I'm just waiting for them to call me to set up an appointment.
Gotta stop now, head hurts too much to type anymore.
Leigh Ann 