A question for those of you on verapamil and having some success. I have been on a baby dose (80 mg once a day) and don’t see much of a change…still having some migraines and still pretty Dizzy! Just curious at what dose you are seeing success. Alsk if you are taking it with another med or meds. I have been on this for about 8 weeks. Thanks in advance for your Comments!
Hi Dee,
I don’t take it but a friend has had good results with it, dosage is vital because she states that too often a person isn’t prescribed a high enough dose. This is what she said, “My doc says a therapeutic dose of verapamil is 240 mg per day. it should be time release formula. What verapamil did for me is make the entire world stop rocking, stop false senses of motion, stop the constant nausea, stop the light sensitivity, etc. etc. etc. (IN OTHER WORDS, IT STOPPED THE MIGRAINE.)” Be sure to do your research about possible side effects as one should with any medications or supplements.
I was on verapamil for many years for a heart arrhythmia, 360 mg/day. My vestibular symptoms started a few months after dropping my dose to 180 mg. My neurotologist said the same thing as Burd mentioned, that the minimum effective dose for MAV is usually 240 mg/day, so 80 mg is probably not enough. You might be able to make do with 180 though. The main side-effect that almost everyone gets from verapamil is constipation and it can be very bad, which is why I reduced my dose, and going down to 180 did the trick.
Hi Dee, I have been taking verapamil 180mg ER every night for at least the last 10 yrs. Prior to that I was given Inderal, Proponal, and another one which I cannot recall the name. Each of these had caused problems that were not acceptable so Verapamil was the next and last. I can honestly say on this med. my life has improved. Read your post and want to thank you for the term “motion trailing”. Can relate to that sensation - never could quite explain it accurately. Feel it sometimes when walking and then come to a stop, driving and come to a stop yet feel as though the movement is catching up behind me. Is that your experience? Hang in there.
Hello. I’ve been on Verapamil ER for about 6 months now and I have seen a great deal of improvement. I started out at 120mg a day for 3 months and noticed that I good drive without much motion sickness and I could handle walking into stores without being overwhelmed by my migraine symptoms. I then increased to 180mg a day in hopes of making my experience in stores better. After nearly 3 months at 180mg, I find I’ve gone from feeling maybe 70% in stores (at 120mg) to about 80-85% at 180mg. However, I went from feeling 90% while driving (on city roads, freeways, with music on, over bumps in the road, etc.) to maybe 80% (I can’t go over 50mph and can’t listen to music usually while driving). Also, at 180mg a day, I found that any nausea associated with bowel movements to be completely gone whereas when I was at 120mg, I was still occassionally getting nauseous about once a week.
I found constipation to be troublesome only for a few days when starting Verapamil and then when increasing the dose. I just made sure that I drank lots of water and had 2-3 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. That seemed to do the trick and now I don’t experience any constipation. I do, however, feel a little dizzy with the 180mg dose, but this isn’t an unusual side effect for Verapamil users and dizziness was never really a migraine symptom for me personally.
My neurotologist said that it takes about 3-6 weeks at a particular dose of Verapamil to feel its full effects. Usually, 120mg is the starting dose (especially for petite and short-statured people) and 180mg is the starting dose for regular size people.