daily headaches and chronic pain

[chef8sauce]

I have daily headaches and chronic pain that generates from the tightness in my neck.  I constantly am cracking my neck and massaging the area so I can get that one great crack that will relieve the chronic pain momentarily.  I have been successful in getting rid of my chronic  daily migraines through a med salad that includes the following-
Diovan hct 160/25 mg morning
Tizanidine hcl 4 mg 3 x’s daily
Hydromorphone 8 mg 3 x’s daily
Gabapentin-300 mg 3 x’s daily
Vytorin 10/40 mg nightly
Lexapro- 20 mg nightly
Amatriptyline-10 mg nightly
Verapamil-460 mg nightly

[Archeopterix]

Thats quite a lot of drugs you're taking there. Have you tried going back to basics and doing heat and massage and accupuncture? All those medicines every day will be hell on yor internal organs and might do more harm then good.

For example, with all those opiates every day your colon will become sluggish and youwill have digestive problems and your colon might actuual stop (this happened to me a year ago) and getting it gong again is the least-fun thing I had to go through, and it put my chronic daily headaches into perspective.

I'm not saying the headaches aren't bad and don't require medical attention, if I don't take painkillers for mine I can tap out into a seizure, for example. But with that drug cocktail I'd worry about your liver and GI tract.

See if you can get into some physio and maybe some accupuncture and so on and see if you can lower your med dose.

[Vanessa Lacuesta]

Hi,

Although it's a good thing that you have ceased from experiencing your headaches,it will still be wise to have a physician evaluate your headaches.You have mentioned that you 'crack" your neck most of time. Was a scan of the cervical spine done? Cervicogenic headaches may present with neck pain and migraine like symptoms. Given that this has been present for quite a time may suggest that an underlying disorder is present.This needs to be ruled out.

Also,were all your medications prescribed by your physician? It is a good thing that the medications improve your condition however, it may not be cost effecive nor truly beneficial in the long run.