Ever since my neck surgery, I've been dealing with 3-4 headaches per week, and they are worse if I work out or do anything which stretches the neck area by the spine where the muscle was pulled away from the vertebrae. For fear of opiates and any type of addiction, I've been going back and forth with various medications - Advil, Bayer Advanced, Care One Migraine (cheap version of Tylenol). The best is a combination of Flexeril with Aleve - BUT - the Flexeril, while not an opiate, is still prescription based, and the amount of Aleve I am taking in combination with it, 275mg, was also prescribed. Someone recommended the combo on another health related site, and I happened to have both, so I tried it. But of course I am now running low on both as I use that combo like once per week.
I have general pain in the back portion of my neck, and the headaches feel like the beginning of migraines, above my eyes in the forehead area. I had went in to speak to my surgeon about this, but he tells me the same as I read on other sites, it's an unfortunate side effect of sorts until things are fully healed. The associated pains and stretching simply cause headaches. So I guess really all I can do is take care of myself and do my best to avoid exacerbating things, but it's not always that easy.
Anyway, being that the combo seems to work best, and Flexeril is not an opiate, would anyone recommend I stick with that? And if so, do I ask my surgeon to prescribe these meds do you think, or my regular internal medicine doctor? The first doctor I saw who diagnosed me with the degenerative disc disease is the one who gave them to me, but I haven't seen him but once before he referred me to the surgeon, who in turn "upgraded" me to the Percocet. I feel awkward asking either of them quite frankly, after the withdrawals I went through, and certainly don't want to look like a seeker, but I have to have something on hand to deal with these continued headaches.
Btw, the Flexeril is technically a muscle relaxer, but as the muscle feels better in the neck, away goes the headache.