Posted by Just another Sufferer.. (152.163.197.208) on April 29, 2000 at 09:31:44:
What a week this has been! A friend of mine off of this board suggested I try the medicine Amerge, hey, what the heck, giving it a try can't hurt anything! I mean I've tried EVERYTHING else, so I called my Doc and samples were waiting for me immediately. I got the 2.5mg. pills and decided to 1/2 them and take the 1/2 of tablet every 6 hours(I had a reaction to imitrex and was a bit concerned with another reaction!) Within about 20 minutes of the first dose...my attack was aborted!! I only had 3 mild attacks all week!! Now, you must understand, we're talking about my history!! I recieve SSI due to my Cluster's, I've been chronic for nearly 10 years, suffering normally with about 5-7 attacks (daily) ranging anywhere from 6-9kip scale! This has truly been a miracle for me, now the fight with the Ins. Co. was another story. They denied our first claim, "Not enough documented history" and they wanted to refer me to a Neuro.??? Don't ask me why, but I called the Ins. Co. myself and asked "WHY? I've been diagnosed, I recieve YOUR rediculous Insurance as a direct result of my SSI and if we've found something that works, why wont you approve it?" There answer...submit MORE documented history! And we did just that, my Dr. faxed nearly 40 pages of history and again, I called the Ins. Co. and the same woman came on the phone(she was as kind as she could be) and said to me "First of all, do You realize how strange it is that you were connected back up with me? There are over 300 people in this phone bank..." I asked her to check on the status of the Pre-Cert. and she came back on the line, with a trembling voice(I had given her a run-down of my history and just how devistated my life had been from CH's) and said "Your Request Was APPROVED....Now get your shoes on and GO GET your Medicine!!!" For any of you chronic or otherwise thats given up on trying anything new, and trust me I did it reluctantly, try something new...Amerge or otherwise!! This week there were a couple times when I had to space the medicine out past the 6 hr. dosing time and had a couple mild breakthroughs, and afterwards I thought to myself "How in God's name have I raised 2 children, kept a family and just survived with these demons for 10 years???!" I've been able to do little(HUGE) things...go to the grocery w/out parking in the front row, just in case. Leave the house w/out my special little remedies...hot coffee, a towel to cover my eye. Sit in one place and actually watch a movie, sit in a room w/ a ceiling fan going! I have 2 teen-age boys that have lived virtually there whole lives with "Mom having these headaches, that arent really headaches, that have basically controlled our lives" so you can imagine when they came in from school yesterday and I left the pharmacy slip laying on the counter stating I can recieve 30 Amerge tablets monthly with an 11 month refill.....they cried, I cried, (and any Cluster sufferer knows crying is a BIG no-no)and I'll tell you this, life IS good. Do I think the Demon is gone forever, hell no. I'm not stupid. But what I do know is trying something new has literally changed my life. Sorry this post is so long..The best to all of you.