So, last night I got done with a long drive, which always gives me a migraine. After eating, I went ahead and took a sumatriptan and some ibuprofen and got into bed, ready for the pain to ease a little and to fall into that sweet, sweet, triptan coma.

Welp. My brain had other ideas. I’ve never experienced this side effect before from sumatriptan, but suddenly my neck became incredibly stiff, to the point of extreme discomfort. It radiated down my back and up my jaw bone, too. At first I thought it was from being in the car so long, but no position would ease the discomfort at all. So I googled it, and sure enough, it’s a side effect of sumatriptan that I was so lucky to experience last night.

Because I was unable to drift off thanks to the stiffness, the nausea from the sumatriptan quickly began, making the neck discomfort worse. Laying down and moving my head every few minutes seemed to help my neck, but every motion would set off waves of nausea. Somehow I managed to fall asleep.

I woke up an hour later, soaked in sweat (is this just me, or do other people sweat like crazy during a migraine?) and found the stiffness thankfully gone. I crept out of bed to check on my senior cat (I make her stay out of the room when I take medication like triptans, I’m worried I’ll knock her out of bed or something and won’t wake up to know it) and sure enough the nausea is back, so I’m then rushing to the bathroom.

It was a crazy night. I did finally end up falling asleep after all of that, and staying asleep, and it seems like the migraine is gone now that I’ve woken up. Does anyone else have the stiff neck side effect? If so, do you have any tips for it? I think my neurologist just bumped me up from 50 mgs to 100 mgs of sumatriptan, and I’m wondering if it’s that increase that caused that side effect?