I have been taking Aimovig since Nov 2020, so a little over 2 years, and have no side effects that I can speak of, besides much fewer migraine attacks. 🙂

Also, I get migraines about a week before I take the next treatment, as if it is wearing off. That is about all the migraine attacks I get.

Sheryl,
Hi! The new med is called Qulipta, a preventative medication for episodic migraines. CKay

I tried Aimovig for about 5 months. Although their charity wing gave it to me free and it did reduce my migraines some, it gave me irreconcilable constipation.

I've had to take Metamucil for decades after my ruptured appendix and advanced peritonitis gave me irritable bowel. The constipation from the Aimovig was severe and scary amounts of stool softener and miralax still couldn't resolve it. My doctor was pretty casual about it and didn't offer a good solution so I quit using the Aimovig.

The self administered shots were painful but not as painful as the rescues (I don't remember the name) I used to take.

This thread has been running for a couple of years, so I thought I'd update.
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I started Aimovig in 2020. As you can see, my neurologist was correct in stating they had no data on those of us who've lived with migraines for 50 years, and that's why he asked that I commit to it long term. Now some will say 130 days is still too many migraines, but if you've lived with 24-28 days a month, two thirds of my life, lost to migraines, then you'd be thrilled to flip the numbers and now lose only 1/3. Also, these are not prodromes or post dromes, nor background headache days. I only count migraines that are bad enough to start taking extra medication. I still haven't found a rescue med that doesn't have flu like symptoms for me. Currently we're trying Nurtec. I liked it although it takes 2-4 hours to work on me and makes me sleepy. However, it costs $976 per month. I can't afford that. I'm trying to find out if there's another foundation to help with the cost.

Anyway, I thought y'all would like to see how long it took for Aimovig to start switching off the CGRPs in a brain that lived with migraine for over 50 years. Since I'm not paying for Aimovig, I'm willing to continue being a test patient for my neurologist. If there's side effects, I've not had too much. Like I mentioned earlier, I've had lifelong constipation, but I deal with it now using Benefiber at every meal, 2 psyllium caps every meal and one stool softener every meal as prescribed by my urogynocologist. Plus, I drink huge amounts of water too.

An added note...I have also noticed my background headaches have reduced, but since I've never tracked them, I can't give actual data. Oh, in addition to Aimovig, I also do botox and wear binasal occlusion glasses. However, right now my glasses are actually causing problems! They took me out of my sclera contacts, against my wishes because I loved them, since I'm supposed to have cataract surgery and contacts change the shape of your eye, you have to go months free of contacts. These glasses I'm wearing in the meantime have been causing headaches because they are so heavy and my vision is still double. So I expect my 2023 data to be skewered thanks to the lenses being so thick. But hopefully 2024 will show a huge Improvement! I just have to get through these cataract surgeries first.

I took Aimovig for a year, I switched to Emgality because I had too many side effects on the Aimovig. I was on Emgality for two years, it worked much better for me. After two years it stopped working for me, now I’m on Nurtec every other day.