Tylex...Friend or Foe?

I've described in my last post the sort of...err (aweful...terrible...not quite strong enough words huh? ;) )...shattering auric migrains I occasionally suffer from.

They never last more than 24 hours, so the next day i'm okay again with a new and profound appreciation of life.

However, about five/six years ago I was working abroad and one hit. It was the full-on nasty: vision, balance, ability to speak - doing my impression of a drunken person stumbling about.

I happened to be working with a lady who suffered migrains every other week. Really aweful, I think I would have topped myself having to live with that - huge amount of respect and admiration for anyone who lives with such pain on a regular basis.

Anyway, she gave me some Tylex (codine phosphate hemihydrate 30mg/paracetamol 500mg). I took a couple and it knocked me out cold - which was utterly fantastic, except for the fact that this migrain went on for three days! I ended up having an injection in my butt to stop me from throwing up and I honestly thought I was going to die. Even after the main effects had past, it took me another couple of days (five in total) to return to normality.

I know everyone's different and everyone has different triggers, but i've heard that there are some migrain drugs that have a tendency to actually aggrivate and make worse symptoms in many sufferers. Is there a list of migrain drugs and the sort of migrains they're supposed to treat/who should avoid them?

Is Tylex a known fellon or is it generally considered to be a safe option? Is it likely to have caused such an extreeme effect or is it more likely to have been coincidence?

Best wishes,

Marion.

Hi :)

Ah, learn something new every day. Didn't know that, thanks. Will do on the medical front too.

I remember one doctor came out and he gave me two pills - one for motion sickness and the other was just this tiny, tiny little white pill. My god did it do the trick!

He left two behind. They're a couple of years old now so probably not such a good thing, but I keep them aside for an emergency. They were just awesome - 15 minutes and boomph, not just sleepy but conscious with no pain! Love to know what they are.

Codeine is an interesting one because it's an opiate like morphine, I guess that's the sleepy effect? Thing is, if you took a strong enough sleeping aid then I guess a painkiller would be superfluous? Like people admitted to hospital on a bad trip, they don't give them anything, they just knock them out with a heavy-duty sleeping aid until it's over. If you can sleep, you don't need the pain relief unless the pain overrides the sleeping aid - and there are some pretty powerful sleeping aids.

It's an interesting conundrum. I didn't know about rebound headaches. Interesting. I heard that some drugs also contain aspartame which is a not a bright idea really.

Wish there was a bit more openness and plain English about what goes into drugs. It's like E-numbers and food.

Best wishes,

Marion.