I noticed several years ago that when I took analgesics fairly regularly, (motrin at the time), I seemed to get a lot of migraines.  But had forgotten about that until I started reading some of the posts here. I generally don't take NSAIDS or Tylenol for headaches, because I've found them to be ineffective.  However, I have two other pain sources that force me to take NSAIDS (currently Naprosyn).  First, is some pelvic pain that I get at the beginning of my period, and then much worse at midcycle.  I have had surgery for endometriosis in the past (~12 years ago), so the Drs. tell me that my pain is probably due to the endometriosis coming back.  I've tried Synarel, it reduced the pain while I took it (3 mos), but the pain returned immediately after I stopped.  Three doctors have suggested hysterectomy as the only "real solution" to my problem.  Although I don't expect to have any more children, I don't like the idea of having my uterus and one remaining ovary removed (the first ovary was removed when I had the surgery for endometriosis).  One of the Drs that suggested I get a hysterectomy is an expert in laser surgery, but perhaps thinks that type of procedure is only worthwhile on women who still plan to have children.  So basically all I'm left with is toughing out the pain.  This would be impossible without Naprosyn (or something similar - but not aspirin, that doesn't work, and Motrin gave me horrible gastritis a few years ago, so I'm through with it).  In fact, Naprosyn works very well at eliminating the pain if I take it regularly as I did when I had severe back pain (and pain in both  legs) as I'll discuss in a moment.  Generally though, I wait until I have the pain before I take the Naprosyn, but then it takes several hours for it reduce the pain (it's actually quite effective at reducing the pain, it just takes quite a while).  In the meantime I'm frequently in severe pain.  The other pain source I have is chronic lower back pain resulting in bilateral radiculopathy.  I've had MRIs, Xrays, CT scan, and EMGs (I've had 2 of them, and don't intend to ever do that again) with nerve conduction tests.  The tests have not been conclusive as to what is causing my back and leg pain.  The MRI reports both say I have several bulging, degeneratig disks, and from the Xrays (and MRI, I think) it is apparent that I have arthritis.  The reading on the CT scan was that there are two herniations (L3-L4, and L4-L5), but others hav looked at the films and concluded that there are no herniations. The second EMG and nerve conduction studies shows significant denervation compared to the first EMG.  Oh yeah, I had some other horrible test, called something like Somatic Evoked Response which showed that the "internal nerves" are working fine.   Anyway, the bottom line is that I sometimes have severe pain in both legs and back pain.  The back pain is there all the time, but I can live with it.  When the leg pain is there, I need some analgesic/anti-inflammatory medication to reduce the pain to a level where I can work.  So I took Naprosyn regulary for 6-9 months (every time I tried to stop the leg pain got worse, so I'd  always resume).  Since last November I have taken it much less frequently, and primarily for the pelvic pain.  I have been going to physical therapy for the last 8 months (2-3 times a week).  After the first month or so, my therapist put me on pelvic traction (she had tried it earlier, but it had caused a lot of pain in my back, this time she tried it at a lower weight).  After a month or two, the pain in my legs began going away (but the traction aways caused discomfort in my lower back, which could be reduced with ultrasound and massage).  So now, I don't have nearly as much pain in my legs, in fact my therapist took me off traction about 2 weeks ago.  Getting back to my original reason for this post...  Even if I can avoid taking analgesic for headaches, I really can't avoid them entirely because I have other pain sources, that "force" me to use them (Oh, I forgot to mention that it has been suggested to me that I have back surgery, but I'm avoiding that too).  I find the migraines difficult to deal with, occassionally I have to take off work, but usually I can work, but at a reduced capacity (I'm a systems engineer and do a lot of reading and writing).  When the pelvic pain is bad, I can't concentrate much, I usually end up jumping out of my chair every few minutes, because the pain is so bothersome.  When the pain in my back is bad, it can cause severe burning in both legs, shooting pains in my legs, electric shock type of pain in my feet and toes, and basically when it gets bad I can't really sit at all.  Then I end up spending most of my time home and in bed.  So even if the analgesics contribute to the migraines, the migraines are more tolerable than the other pain sources.  I get a lot of migraines, an average of 3 to 4 a month, which last 1-3 days. I've taken cafergot (the first time the caffiene really got to me so I reduced the dosage), but I don't like the side effects (if I take more than two I get diahrea).  If I get a very bad headache, I will eventually take the cafergot.  My neurologist wasn't very helpful when I told him my problems with cafergot, he said that when sumatriptan becomes available, I should try that.  I've tried several other medications (fiornal, midrin, fiornal with codeine, tegretol, and inderal) but they either didn't work, or I couldn't tolerate them.  So what can I do? My doctor's seem to be satisfied with me just trying to tolerate the pain, which I agree with most of the time, but not when I have a lot of pain.  I've had some bad experiences with surgery (my heart stopped once from the anesthesia - I was told that it was likely the succinylcholine), and I've already had surgery several times.  Anyway, the point of what I'm saying is that even if analgesics can contribute to migraines, some people NEED to take them to tolerate other pain.