Aside from being the only place in town I can consistently see penis graffiti and neo-Nazis shopping in the same aisles as middle-aged Melungeons, and being the only place that laughs at me when I forget a bag, but puts it in the ice chest so that it stays cool until I get back for it, Tony’s has another thing going that I would be remiss in mentioning.
On Sunday, I got a migraine. A bad one. Like the kind where you want to touch your head to put pressure on it so that you can think, but touching your head makes you have to vomit from the pain. And I had taken ibuprofen and it had dulled the ache enough that I could go do my park. But I was still in bad shape.
So, I went to Tony’s and they had their store brand “Migraine Pills.” Who the fuck even knows what that means, right? Migraine pills. At fucking Tony’s. They could give you a migraine. I don’t know. People at Tony’s have needs. Maybe one of them is an easy way to give their enemies crippling head pain.
But I was desperate. So I bought them. You take two every twenty-four hours. No more than that. The label is absolutely clear. More than two is an overdose. The active ingredients are acetaminophen, aspirin, and caffeine. And there’s some other shit I didn’t recognize. You take them. Within about thirty minutes, the pain goes away. You then become so drowsy that you have to lay down on the couch for a few minutes before you can go to bed.
You sleep gloriously. You wake up in the morning.
There is still no pain.
For the whole twenty-four hours. Tony’s magic pills are not fucking around. There is no pain.
How is this possible? How are these pills available over the counter? Is it wrong that I want to go back and buy up every single bottle, just in case they go away for some reason? Are they a generic of something else? I mean, I feel like I’ve tried everything at one point that claims to be migraine formulated.
But I have never taken something that was so clearly able to just end the pain.
I feel like knocking on wood. I hope this post doesn’t jinx it.
But wow.
Bless you, Tony’s Magic Migraine Pills.
Filed under: About Town, Stories About Me
Generic Excedrin. Can be almost replicated with excessive coffee, 1 aspirin and 2 tylenol in an emergency situation.
I guess I should add that my understanding is that the caffeine constricts the dilated blood vessels that contribute to the migraine, the aspirin thins the blood, so it flows more freely and the tylenol dulls the pain until the other symptoms pass.
I want to drive up the Nashville right now and buy every single bottle. Alabama probably has some bullshit nitpicky law on the books about transporting migraine medication across the border, because Alabama has bullshit nitpicky laws for everything.
Up to, not up the. Hahahahahahaha.
What CJH said: that’s Excedrin Migraine.
Yeah; love the description of the store, but that’s Excedrin.
It’s the combo of the drugs. Caffeine has long been recognized as a first line of defense for migraines; it’s even in some prescription migraine drugs (Cafergot). Anti-inflammitories work better for migraines than aspirin, but in combo they can be great – I have better luck with naproxen sodium (which is included with Treximet a prescription migraine med).
Heading them off at the pass is the key and I take prescription meds to stop mine. Read about triptans…sounds like you would benefit from some.
I agree that the combination is the key. I was recently given a combination of Norco (pain reliever) and Toradol (anti-inflammatory) and the result was a complete absence of pain along with the onset of a strangely blissful feeling.
The best remedies for migraine do stay away from narcotic pain relievers (and I say this as a person who is very pro-narcotic) because of the bounceback effect.
The best migraine remedy I’ve ever had has been injectable Toradol (Keterolac–NSAID) and benadryl; if I ever get too deeply into one before I can head it off at the pass with Excedrin Migraine, I’ll replicate that by taking Naproxen Sodium (Aleve) with Benadryl and a Coke.
Lord, I’m starting to think that either migraines are more common than I realized or having migraines just gives you incredible taste in blogs.
That sounds like good advice, Katherine Coble. I don’t like narcotics myself, but primarily because of their constipating effect. It’s even worse when your body is already trying to shake off the effects of anesthesia. Still, I found that the Toradol on its own worked wonders for my condition (which wasn’t a migraine, but surgery-related internal inflammation). So I can see where a non-narcotic pain reliever plus the anti-inflammatory is better.