Preventive Medicines: Do I need to take them? When? and what type?

Preventive medicine helps reduce the intensity, frequency, and duration of migraine. If your migraine is severe enough, you need to consider taking preventive medicines. Your migraine might be considered a severe migraine if you get one or more debilitating migraine attacks a month or if your migraine episodes last three days or longer. You have to note that preventive medicines have to be taken on daily basis, thus you have to read the list of the side effects of the particular drug you are going to take. Also, you have to wait about two to four weeks (and sometimes more) before you can judge the medicine. I listed the major types of preventive meds:

Cardiovascular drugs

Beta blockers are one of the types used to treat high blood pressure, but can also be used in the treatment of migraine. Common medications include Inderal (propranolol), Blocadren (timolol), Toprol (metoprolol), and Corzide (nadolol). Calcium channel blockers are another class of cardiovascular drugs that are used to treat migraine. Calan (Isoptin) is an example of a common calcium channel blocker. There is a downside to this type of drugs that people with heart problems may not take them. Also, if one has to stop them he or she has to do it slowly.

Antidepressants

Some patients may not like the idea to take a drug that belongs to this category because they think they don’t have depression, so the medicine is not for them. In fact, some antidepressants work well with some migraineurs. Tricyclic antidepressants are the most effective for migraineurs. Some examples include amitriptyline, nortriptyline (Pamelor) and protriptyline (Vivactil).

Anti-seizure drugs

These medications are not supposed to be used as your first option; they need careful consideration for the possible side effects they may cause you. Some patients reported that theses medications did not cause them serious side effects, but you have to decide whether to take them or not. Some examples include Depakote (divalproex), Topamax (topiramate), gabapentin (Neurontin), and Lyrica (Pregabalin).