Tuesday 8 July 2008

Losing is winning

When it comes to weight loss,anyway.


As you will know if you hang about this blog, I have migraines. Terrible migraines ( why am I adding 'terrible', I wonder? Let's face it, if you have had a migraine, you know that they are all terrible. Suffice to say, some of them have been more terrible than usual).


I would like to shake by the hand the person (people?)who linked tryptan drugs with migraine prevention/treatment. I take Pizotifen on a daily basis and Zomig when I have an actual attack. As well as the actual migraine itself, I can get a lot of head/face/neck pain which the Pizotifen helps to keep at bay.


However, Pizotifen does have one significant drawback - weight gain. Here's a little something that I found on the net:



Investigating the obese patient
The causes of obesity include:

excessive calorie intake
myxoedema
Cushing's syndrome
polycystic ovary syndrome
medication (oral contraceptive pill, corticosteroid analogues, sulphonylureas, tricyclic antidepressants, pizotifen)
http://www.24dr.com/reference/library/eat/obesity/obesity.htm


I don't know if I have said this before, but one pharmacist rubbished my complaint that when I take 1.0mg I find it hard to stop eating, and when I have to take 1.5mg I literally cannot stop eating. When I went to the doctor here, she was astonished that I had been prescribed Pizotifen, since here they use it to treat anorexia . Need I say more?


Here they tend to use Magnesium therapy . I tried that but it didn't do much for me. However, with the recent upsurge in problems I have started to take it in conjunction with the Pizotifen.


So, what is all this rambling about? Put simply - when I am on high doses of P, I eat like ahorse and gain weight. When I am on lower doses I can fight back a bit and shed some pounds. I have lost 10lbs in the couple of months. If I lose another stone, I will be back at an acceptable weight. This is still the weight that I was when I was 9 months pregnant, so I don't think it will be unreasonable.

3 comments:

  1. But, but, I've seen you! You don't look like there's anything to lose!

    ;-)

    (I know people who say things like that don't help, but really!)

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  2. Amazing that they wouldn't know that about the drug! Of course, there are dim bulbs everywhere ... but still. It had to be on the warnings label, right?

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  3. It is on the information label 'May increase appetite'. I thought I might be a bit peckish now and again, not starving all the time. But you know, some people don't accept the experience of others. This pharmacist didn't know anything about it and didn't think my experience should lead her to read up a bit...

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