I'd like to ask anyone who watched, heard about, or is familiar with the topic discussed on a 20/20 special Friday night regarding over-the-counter pain medicines and rebound headaches. After watching the 20/20 special, I became concerned.

I take aleve everyday for fibromyalgia pain. Some days I only take one or two, but on bad days, I take up to four. My doctors all know that I do this and approve. They've each said that aleve is effective as a pain reliever for me and that it has fewer side effects than prescription pain relievers, which I have taken before. The problem is that I often have headaches as well, almost every day.

My question is whether the aleve that I'm taking for fibromyalgia pain could be turning off my brain's headache pain receptors. In other words, can rebound headaches occur when pain relievers are taken for for conditions other than headaches (while headaches are also present)? How do the pain receptors in my brain know that the Aleve is for the fibromyalgia pain and not for the headaches? Could the daily Aleve be causing my daily headaches?

Also, I have a number of doctors, as someone with a medical condition often does. Who should I ask these questions of? Should I ask my family doctor, my rheumatologist, my physiatrist, my psychiatrist, my allergist... Which would be most knowledgable? I must admit that I am very, very worried. Thank you all in advance.

[This message has been edited by Anonymity (edited 01-14-2003).]

First of all, don't be really worried. You are not going to all of a sudden NOW get worse rebound headaches. If you are having them, you need to take a breath and do as you are, figure out which doc to ask.

Personally, I'd ask whichever doc. you think is the most up to date on things. Maybe the physiatrist, they're on the ball, or the psychiatrist. Lots of psychiatrists treat headaches, mine does. I used to go to the headache clinic that the man in that show Dr. Sheftell, works at. They took me off my daily Advil and Motrin (this was in 1987 and NO ONE had heard of rebound headaches, other than headache specialists like him, certainly not my primary care doc. who told me to take these meds.) Sure enough, I felt like my whole body was on fire, my teeth even hurt. I felt like my face was melting, etc. TRUE withdrawal. Unfortunately, for me, my stubborn headaches didn't go away! I just had nothing to take other than a SMALL dose of Midrin they let me have. I am the extreme pain case, though.

I guess *I'd* weigh which malady you want the most relief from, the fibro or the headaches, if you have to choose. see what the doctors say, and I'd lessen the meds. SLOWLY, I don't see the purpose of the cold turkey way I went, it was horrible. Sometimes, now, they put you in a hospital and give you something else while going off the meds, but if it's going to make your fibro worse, man, that's hard to choose. I have both too, but I'm SO used to the daily headaches since 1987, that the fibro bothers me worse.

Hope something helped.

How are you? I never saw that special on 20/20, but do know about these rebound headaches for sure.

I was taking morphine. It helped some of the pain. I forgot to get a new prescription. So for two weeks I went through intense physical withdrawal. It was the whole hot/cold flash deal. It put me in a migraine for a very long time.
When I returned to taking morphine (long acting), it took away the migraine slowly (after a week), and just put me into a constant headache. The morphine isn't deadly strong, so it didn't kick it entirely. Now within my headache, I have 1-3 migraines a day. Fun, fun, fun. The migraines aren't too severe, so a prescription migraine Rx dulls the pain a little.

I hope you feel better too.

do some research on MSM. the stuff is incredible. and in addition to blocking pain signals it contribute to the sulfur pool thereby correcting a lot of deficiencies that exist in these types of conditions.

MSM?