I’ll second this statement. Migraines for me (and my mom as well) used to be crushing, and would take me out for potentially days at a time. Sumatriptan was a miracle drug for me, and now if I take it in time, I don’t suffer. If I catch it late, it will reduce the duration of the migraine to just a few hours (which feels like a miracle in the moment).

I had tried previous to sumatriptan many other remedies, and nothing compared. I’ve heard from my doctor many respond well to magnesium supplements as a way to head off the migraines altogether but I can’t say it worked for me (but I gave it a shot none the less).

All that being said, I’m generally averse now to opiates after seeing their long term effects on my father who was also an alcoholic. They did allow him to push through pain, which resulted in ever increasing damage to his joints (and ultimately internal organs as well). By the end, he couldn’t walk, was self medicating heavily with alcohol, and couldn’t keep himself in a physical rehab facility because his urge for alcohol and opiates couldn’t get satiated in that environment.

He died at 61.

So, I applaud the author and those who seek to responsibly limit access to medications which are highly addictive and potentially unnecessary for treatment. Pain management is very important, but it does need to be weighed against the potentially catastrophic dependency issues it can cause.

Migraine is slightly different than post-op pain though. Post op pain is good pain. The treatment was the surgery, and the pain is expected. Minimizing it may make the treatment less effective (e.g. by exertion, lack of rest ect). With migraine, the painkiller is effectively the treatment.

I had all four wisdom teeth removed at once and all I needed was one ibuprofen the first night, but a fucking migraine and I need at least one, sometimes two.

I had a wisdom teeth removed and was given basically nothing, besides the anesthetic injection needed for me not to feel pain during the procedure.

Please note that my wisdom tooth was about 80-90% developed and outside the gum, so no "surgery" was required, just some lever movement to pull it out. Also, no stitches were needed.

I was sent home with just an advice to eat non-solid, cold stuff "using the other side of the mouth".

Quite frankly, everything went okay. It was weird feeling that hole in my mouth, but it eventually filled itself.

I can second that experience. I'm still quite baffled by how little force is required to remove a tooth. The dentist barely wriggled his wrist and it popped out.

All I got sent home with was a wad of bandage to bite down on for the first 10 minutes. All in all probably the least painful experience I've ever had at the dentist. (Novacaine doesn't quite work properly on me it seems)

Well one of mine was tilted 90°, it had to be cut into pieces first and then cut from the bone. The others were quite OK though, not just a wiggle but no crazy stuff involved.

Not all migraine sufferers are the same. I have suffered from fairly regular migraine headaches for about twenty years (can't believe it's been that long!) and sometimes taking something like 200mg of ibuprofen when you first feel it can result in the progress of the headache being 'arrested' at that stage and though it still lasts as long as a normal headache before it passes, sometimes it manages to stop it from fully blooming.

However, even within my own experience, only ~1/4 of my headaches respond this way. I've taken other medications as well, and the majority of my migraines don't respond to anything other than trying to soothe the symptoms :/ In the majority of cases ~3/4 of the time, there's nothing you can do to stop it, you just have to dig yourself in and get to a quiet dark place for a few hours until it passes.