Dear Insurance: Stop Trying to Kill Me with Triptans

This Post Brought to You by Pain and Prior Authorization

(I’m Not a Guinea Pig in a Lab Coat)

You say I need to try other medications before I qualify for the one that actually worked?
Cool.
Great.
Let’s talk about that.

Why are you prescribing me triptans when I have Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome?

That’s a heart condition.
You know the organ responsible for keeping me alive?

My resting heart rate, on a normal day, just sitting calmly and sipping water like a well-behaved adult, is 43 beats per minute. You should see what it is like when I am sleeping… I was in the hospital after my youngest daughter was born and the nurses freaked because sleeping it was in the 20’s.

That’s not “athlete calm.”
That’s “should she be in the ICU or is she just vibing in slow-mo?” calm.

A Little Backstory

I’ve had migraines since I was seven.

Yes. Seven years old.
Most kids were worried about recess and spelling tests. I was figuring out how to function while my skull felt like it was trying to implode.

Since then, I’ve tried it all:
Diets. Exercise. Supplements. Medications. Meditation. Caffeine. No caffeine. You name it.

And guess what?
I still get migraines. Way too often for anyone to call it “manageable.”

Amiovig was the only real break I’ve ever had.

For nine glorious months, I had just 3 to 5 small migraines a month.
Not perfect—but compared to my normal 14 to 19 mild migraines and 2 to 4 “sleeping-on-the-bathroom-floor, cuddling-the-porcelain-throne” monsters every single month?

It was heaven.

In that entire 9-month stretch, I only had about five of those catastrophic, world-stopping migraines.
It was the first time in decades that I didn’t live in constant fear of my own brain turning against me.

But then I had to stop.

Not because it stopped working, oh no, it worked.
I had to stop because I started developing severe injection site reactions.

Not your standard itchy red bump
I’m talking angry rashes that spread from the injection site to my entire limb
arm, leg, or even my whole stomach, depending on where I injected it. And it would last for DAYS after.

I had to choose between unbearable migraines or a full-body inflammatory mess.
Cool. Great. Thanks for the options.

And now insurance wants me to go back to triptans.
Back to medications that are literally dangerous with my heart condition.
Back to “try this first because policy says so.”
Back to roulette.
Back to “try this, maybe it won’t kill you this time.”

You want me to take something that constricts blood vessels and spikes heart rate?
Oh sure. Let’s just toss in a defibrillator while we’re at it and call it:

Migraine Survivor: Battle Mode

No thank you.

When my neurologist prescribes a CGRP inhibitor
something that has worked, doesn’t mess with my cardiovascular system, and has actual logic behind it
maybe, just maybe…

Stop rerouting me to the pharmacy version of the gladiator pit.

Because I don’t want a fight.
I want relief.

I want to be able to function.
To work.
To show up for my kid.
To go one damn day without my brain trying to kill itself from the inside out while your system delays treatment like it's playing some kind of bureaucratic dodgeball.

And honestly?

I am tired of having to outsmart a system that’s supposed to help me.

I am not a number.
Not a checklist.
Not some pre-auth code in a spreadsheet.

I am a person with a documented medical condition, a treatment plan, and zero time for medication roulette.

So dear insurance:
If you’re going to keep pretending you know my body better than my doctor does,
at least spring for the defibrillator and the helmet.
Because this guinea pig is done playing.

Here’s my actual ECG reading from today as I write this post:

Average heart rate: 50 bpm.
Still calm. Still alive. Still not a candidate for heart-constricting triptan roulette.

So dear insurance:

If you're going to keep playing "prove your pain" and rerouting me through unsafe meds for fun,
then let me show you what living with this looks like.

This is my body on a good day.
Imagine what it’s like when it’s losing the migraine war and dodging your bureaucracy.

At the very least, maybe now you’ll believe me when I say:
I’m not being dramatic
I’m being alive.