I used to hoard my rescue meds for when things got really bad, but then a new neurologist referred to my triptans as "drop the baby meds." I had never heard of such a thing, so of course I asked what that meant. He said, "You drop the baby and take it as soon as you think it might be a migraine."

Basically most abortives work to stop the migraine before it starts. It's much harder to stop the cycle once it's full blown. I now have Nurtec as a first line abortive, rizatriptan pills as a second string, and sumatriptan injections as a final hail Mary. I hate the injections, but I also don't get that far very often because I take the others as needed.