I'm posting this in hopes that it helps at least one person on this forum, hopefully more.
For 15 months, out of nowhere, I started having debilitating, right-sided headaches, along with ear pain, eye pain and neck pain. I rarely got auras or nauseau. But the pain was constant. I had 2 MRIs, a catscan, went to 2 neurologists, chiropracters, an acupunturist and a massage therapist. I was on about 10 different migraine meds, to no avail.
Six months ago I had to quit my job, because the pain was so intense I could not concentrate. I tried to think about what I had done differently in the past 15 months. Nothing had changed. I was taking a popular sleeping pill, starting with the letter 'a', for 6 years since my Mom passed away. I know these are prescribed for short-term use, and just for the heck of it, I looked on the internet to see if any other long-term users of this medicine experienced what I was going through. On a similar website as this, a person wrote in with the same symptoms I had. Then 100 people or so responded that this was happening to them as well.
So, as difficult as it was to stop taking the medicine (the only relief I had from the migraine was sleep), I did it. After 2 days, my constant pain (24/7) started to improve and improve. After two weeks, the pain came back and I was discouraged, but stayed off the medicine. Eventually, my migraines became few and far between. It has been about 8 weeks since I've been off of this 'sleep aid' and I am finally back to myself.
Like I said earlier, if this advice helps at least 1 person, I feel like I've succeeded today. Good luck everyone.