LW, I'm so sorry for your pain. Seen the movie "Pi"? You know, the 3.14 circumference of a circle formula thingy? If you haven't seen it, it's pretty interesting. And it so captures what it feels like to have the pain of a migraine. The guy tries to drill into his head to let the pain out! I've so wanted to do that.

I've been a migraine sufferer for 14 years. I've had all kinds, 4 hour migraines, 6 day migraines, evening, morning, middle of the night migraines. Here's what's true for me.

No pain reliever works. Even morphine (which I've tried) it can kind of take you on a mini-vacation, but it doesn't take away the pain. It also often causes that horror, the "re-bound migraine." So, in general, I stay away from pain killers. Not that I'm against them, I rather like them in fact, but they just don't work for me.

Also, what doesn't work for me are the Relpax, Imitrex, Maltrex families. Don't know why, but none of those worked for me.

What does work, and the only thing that does is a medicine called Gabapentine (Neurontin is the brand name). I take 800mgs three times a day and sometimes more if I'm in a bad migraine cycle. Gabapentine is an epilepsy drug. It's made for epileptics to take everyday for the rest of their lives. The side effects are relatively low and I don't experience them. If I take a lot, it does make me sleepy but I'd rather be sleepy than incapacitated.

The LW said she couldn't get her insurance to give her medicine for more than twice a week. I bet she's using those Imitrex drugs. Those are so dangerous for chronic migraine sufferers. You can't use them more than twice a week because they're very hard on your heart. That drug is for people who have them less than 6 times a year. Plus, that med can promote re-bound migraines too.

What's interesting to me is that I can take the Gabapentine for a while, feel it suppressing the migraines, then after a year or two I can stop taking it. I go for a couple years migraine free then something triggers it and I start the cycle all over again. For me, it's usually because I took some pain killer for something else, and when I stop the pain meds I start the migraine cycle again. So, I try to avoid pain meds, sucks for me.

I've kept a headache diary in the past: what I ate, what I did, what I took, even how I felt. I suggest the LW do that if she hasn't done it already. Lots of posters have found their triggers. I never found anything except pain med connection, but that is only what triggers the cycle. Once I'm in a cycle, it doesn't seem to matter what I do or eat or feel, I get migraines.

I'm looking forward to other people's stories about their migraines and I'm going to check out that website Cary cited. Good luck to you all out there.

I haven't flown Southwest for a while since I moved to France a few years ago. But before that, it was the only airline I flew for my trips up and down the west coast, and the occasional east coast trip. But my experience stays with me.

Southwest flight attendants are funny, polite and efficient. They tell jokes (even after 9/11!!). One time, close to Christmas, they got the whole cabin singing Jingle Bells. Imagine that on a United flight!

Sure you're packed in like cattle, there's no hot food, and you pay for your beer, but the flying experience is fun and relatively stress free. I loved their "no seat assignment" policy. Planes filled up and took off, sometimes in 20 minutes. Carry-on luggage wasn't a problem since the plane filled front to back and people put their bags above their seats.

You couldn't beat their free flight policy; buy eight round trip tickets (four if you bought online) and get one free. I sent me and my kids to the east coast several times even though my original purchased tickets were short little hops up and down the west coast.

But I think the reason my memories are so fond, is the image I have of relaxed, funny, efficient flight attendants. It's the flight attendants that make your flight experience what it is. When they're nice, you can forgive a multitude of air travel sins. When they're rude--don't even get me started on United or Air France--you feel like you're stuck in detention with the meanest teacher at the school.