Update on Aimovig

A quick update on my 2 month free trial of Aimovig. Remember, this is the first of the new class of migraine preventives - the first drugs ever to have been developed specifically to prevent migraines. They came out of fairly recent research that determined that migraines are not caused by vasodilation as previously believed, but rather are tied to an increase in a specific peptide, or protein, in the brain, (calcitonin gene-related peptide or CGRP). These drugs inhibit the CGRP, thus preventing migraine.

Aimovig is a self-administered, once a month injection. If you are interested, I suggest applying for the 2 month free trial. Amgen will end the injections to your home for free. I have just finished my first month and will receive the second dose in 2 days. So far, I have not seen a reduction in the number of migraine days, but the headaches I have are definitely milder. It is supposed to take as much as three months to experience the full effect of the medication, so I am still hopeful. But I am happy even now as I don't dread the headaches as I used to, and I have zero side effects. I definitely recommend it to all migraine sufferers.

How it Started

© 2011 Henry Ngo, Flickr | CC-BY

The first thing for me was a couple of dizzy spells out of the blue. This was during probably the most stressful period of my life, and I am certain that played a significant role. I will write more about stress in another post. The dizzy spells soon became more frequent and more intense. I should point out here that PPPD is non-vertiginous dizziness. It's not like the common type of vertigo, which I had had before, in which the room seems to spin. For me, this felt the same, but I didn't "see" the room spinning. It was as if my head was spinning inside. The attacks also lasted much longer. Once I was dizzy, the only way I could resolve it was to sit quietly, semi-reclined for several hours. I began having to go in to work later and leave earlier. More and more things made me dizzy. At first, it was mostly bending over or looking up. Then, looking from side to side (for example, from my computer screen to my desk) made me dizzy. Soon, even moving my eyes around the computer screen made me dizzy. At that point, work was impossible and I had to stop. That was a very hard time. My husband and I had to get rid of most of our belongings and downsize to an apartment. I saw an ENT (many times) and four different neurologists, including the foremost specialist in my area in vestibular problems, but no one was able to help me. I had started thinking about the Mayo Clinic when I saw this article: New Clues about Chronic Dizziness. That changed everything.