Well there is only a few things that keeps me up past 9:pm
Parting with cluster friends, camping out, when I am worried about something or a cluster attack.

Wednesday night Buddy and I watch a move I think it was called Mr. Woodcock. With Billy Bob Thornton, it was very funny. I laughed my butt off. I must of laughed to damn hard. We went to bed around 10 right after the movie. I fell dead asleep. I woke up felt like someone just pulled my eye out of its socket. I jumped out of bed knowing what had a hold of me. I ran straight for the coffee, then out to the porch to get on my O2. At this point I am not worried, I start sucking on my O2 about 3 minutes later I am out of O2! I realized I am screwed! I became very frighten. I know that being frighten just makes the pain worst. I talked myself down. The pain was so bad. I rocked back and forth and  drank coffee. I prayed a lot. I would think it was about over and the pain would shoot back up. That was a long night. Buddy woke up to find me asleep on the porch. Really it’s a room we made the porch into. The air condition reaches there. There is about a 5 degree difference in that room. I had my head on the loveseat and my butt on the floor. I have a big tank, it took all three of us to load the tank on the truck, but the tank was filled first thing Thursday morning.

I was chronic for 22 years, I been episodic the last six, it’s been real nice. JD he doesn’t know what a cluster is; he has never had to watch me in pain. I hope he never does. He has enough in his life just being a little boy to have to deal with, without worrying about me. I am not about to let this cycle take me over. The thing that gets me the most is being tired from lack of sleep. I don’t work outside the home, but that doesn’t mean I can just up and lay down any time I like. I have responsibilities too. I have one big job, I home school my grandson. That I refuse to fail at, if I am tired I can’t make school enjoyable enough for him to want to learn. How can I fight the devil and being tired? Well here is what I am doing; it seems to be working for me. At night I take three 3 mg Melatonin, that seems to be giving me more sleep before I get hit. Instead of getting hit at 11 pm and staying up half the night, I am getting hit at 3 0r 4 just  an hour and half  before the clock goes off. I get up at 4:30 every morning with my husband and daughter. I am only losing at the most an hour and half of my sleep time not hours. With my O2, my attacks are over in 30 minutes or less. I am still tired because it takes a lot out of me even though I have not missed a lot of sleep. I take two Excedrin TENSION pill. This pill works on the soreness in my neck and it wakes me up. It also helps with the soreness in my face.My neck and back always hurts afterward an attack. I think that is from how I hold my head; it makes my neck muscles sore. Also I forgot to add that I am one that treats the symptoms, because of the runny nose. I take at night and in the morning Alka Seltzer Plus cold. My nose pours when I get hit and afterwards. Sometimes it gets stopped up. But this helps relieve both. It doesn’t help during the attacks, it does before and after.

I will tell you one more trick I did Friday night. Friday night I was hit twice. The O2 helped both times but the second time it only took the pain down, I couldn’t get it to go away. So I jumped in a cold shower. That took the pain way down. Then I jumped back on the O2 and it was gone. Cold helps me !

Thought I would share this and some of you might find them helpful !