Posted by Matt Beckwith on August 03, 1998 at 08:06:54:
In Reply to: Re: Zomig more effective for me than Imitrex or Amerge posted by Cesare on August 03, 1998 at 02:15:21:
Cesare, I know what you mean about feeling run over after a cluster. I too am at the end of a cluster and, though for the last 3 weeks I've been without severe pain, I'm still not well.
In addition to just the general strain on the constitution of being so sick, there's a phenomenon I've just been reading about called "transformed migraine".
This term applies to a daily episode that's not a headache, but is what your headache can turn into. It varies from one person to the next. In my case it was the full-blown Horner's syndrome (with the droopy eyelid, unilateral runny nose and teary eye) with a dull headache. These were happening about 3 times a day, now they happen about every other day.
For a few days lately I've been having daily tension headaches.
This transformed migraine phenomenon is postulated to be a result of up-regulation of serotonin receptors in the brain. That is, as a result of the clusters (or the medications to treat the clusters) I have more serotonin receptors in my brain now. So what serotonin there is causes excessive effects.
The fact that the transformed migraines are getting less frequent suggests that these receptors are decreasing back toward normal levels.