Not only is it just tylenol and benadryl, and over priced enormously if you are buying the brand name, and dangerous to her liver, there is a STRONG chance that it is CAUSING her headaches.
One of the problems that happens with frequent migraines is that your body first responds to a medication. Then you take the medication often. After a while your body will start to get a headache every time you have been with-o the medication for a little while. It happens with rx medications like fiorinal and midrin, and it happens with OTC medications like tylenol, benadryl, excedrin, excedrin migraine, etc...
It is a large reason why I keep several different medications to treat migraines in the house. even Jessie only gets a certain amount of each of them per week, no matter how bad she is feeling. When you take more than the recommended amount the rebound headaches are even stronger because your body wants that much more medicine to treat them.
financially katie would be MUCH better off to buy generic tylenol and benadryl separately. It is likely that she has to take large amounts to be knocked out and she wants to be knocked out to escape her situation.
There are docs who tell people to use benadryl to treat migraines. Our ER loves to hand it out for migraines. WHile it can help, it really isn't effective for migraines except to knock you out unless the migraine was caused by an allergy to something. Even then, it will deal with the allergy part but not the migraine part. I have had several fights with our local ER over this. NO migraine doctor that I have spoken to, for myself or either of my oldest kids, has said that benadryl is effective for migraine treatment. They have said it is usually docs with little knowledge of migraines and how they work who suggest benadryl. Sudafed (the stuff behind the pharmacy counter now) is MUCH better suited for migraine treatment if you are using OTC medications. Esp if added to excedrin.
The ONLY difference between excedrin and excedrin migraine is that excedrin migraine has 50mg LESS of tylenol. Otherwise they are the same - adding the word migraine to the name expanded their customer base but was just a marketing ploy.
With the migraines caused by taking medicine for too long, about the only thing she can do is to take a different medication or just suffer for a week or two. If she switches medications and does NOT get a triptan (imitrex, frova, etc...) she will just change her body's dependence from one thing to the other. Triptans work differently so they can help with-o making it worse. They are also very expensive and likely beyond what katie can afford. IF she had a doctor and signed up for assistance from the drug co's for one of the triptans that is not generic she likely would get medications for free, but only a few doses a month. With imitrex the limit is nine pills a month. Period. Others have even lower limits from what I ahve seen.
