Hi, I am a mother of 2 in my 40s and have been recently diagnosed with vestibular migraine. It all started in Summer where several times I got episodes where I felt dizzy and like fainting, I attributed it to stress, maybe pannick attacke. By end of September the dizzyness increased, ended up in ER where they found nothing, but my General Doctor send me to a neurologist. The neurologist inmediately diagnosed me with vestibular migraine because a big triggers are the lights in stores, my work… He asked for and MRI and started me with 10 mg of amitriptyline. Amitryptiline was horrible for me, caused my symptoms to feel more severe and worst of all I had paradoxical insomnia. After 2 weeks of suffering the Doctor changed me to 40 mg of propanolol. In the meantine I had my MRI, the MRI showed unspecific white matter lesions that the doctor said are common findings in patients with vetsibular migraine and also a partial sella turcica (the doctor didnt say anything about this but thinking about talking with me ginecologist). I have been on propanol for the last 4 weels, I have han no mayor issues just feeling extra tired. I still have the vertigo, sensitivity to light but all less than the beggining. I am hoping that week 8 it really starts getting better. I was sleeping pretty well until yesterday beggining of week 4 where I had insomnia, is this normal at this time with propanolol? I am just hoping to feel myself again. I haven´t really been me since this all started.
Hello @Stefany_Chaplikov! Welcome to the forum! Everyone here is really friendly and eager to help, so you’re in good hands. Feel free to share your story and ask questions — we’re all in this together. 
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Looking forward to supporting you on your journey to feeling like yourself again!
Welcome to the site @Stefany_Chaplikov . Hope it is useful.
I haven’t personally had a lot of time with Propanolol, but there is a wealth of experience with Propranolol in Medication 
> Beta-blockers. Be sure to check those Topics out. But I’m sure others may chime in …
The standard of a treatment being successful is a reduction in migraine days or symptom severity by greater than or equal to 50%. It is not unusual for certain therapies to take 3 months or longer to reach a status of successful. At the 3 month mark, you and your neurologist can start the conversation about how successful the treatment has been.
Propranolol normally has side effects of fatigue and insomnia. I had both when I tried it. I believe that it suppresses melatonin production (hormone that puts you to sleep at night). Ask your doctor about taking it in the morning if you’ve been taking it at a same time.
Propranolol is a pretty typical migraine medication that is successful for general migraine in many cases. Not sure how well-regarded it is for vestibular variety.
I should add that some treatments can be considered “successful” even if they do not reach 50%. some neurologists may either adjust dosage or combine with another medication if there is some observed benefit, as opposed to switching to a completely different med
Hi thanks so much for answering back to my post. So far I have been in propanol for 4 weeks, and yes I can say 50% of the initial symptoms are gone, but I still have 50% left or even a little bit less. I still have blurry vision and sometimes I get dizzy. I had bad headaches this weekend but I had my period and that is a big trigger for me I learned. Propanolol doesn´t give me insomnia, amitriptyline did and really bad. I am taking every night a 1mg melatonin gummy and maybe that helps. I want to see if 8 - 12 weeks in this will make my symptoms go away and just get somedays flare ups. I asked the Doctor when can I stopo propanolol and his answer was not for a long time, that maybe it is for life. Scared of that as I have never been in a medicine for a long time.
Hi Sefany, sorry for the delay. Propanolol can take longer than other medications to really hit its full effect (like 6 months or more). The fact that you notice some improvements already in a month is great! For me Propanolol and Metoprolol gave me insomnia. Interesting that Amitriptyline gave you insomnia and Propanolol didn’t, usually its opposite for people but everyone is different.
I’ve been on and off Propanolol and Metoprolol over the years. I really wish I could stay on them for life because they worked so well for vestibular migraine. But they always gave me slow bowels (back pain) and insomnia, which I couldn’t put up with anymore…
Don’t be scared to be on medications for life. Just focus on getting better for now and once you do feel better for a long time you can try to slowly experiment with going off them. Many people have recovered with the medications and then been able to go off of them without any issues. I myself have done this several times.