On December 11th I developed a severe head ache above my left eyebrow. It was more of a pain than an ache. The only way I can describe the pain like having a 6" nail hammered through the middle of my eyebrow firmly going through my brain and exiting diagonally through my temple. Now when the pain really kicks in its like someone tugging on the nail and pulling it from side to side.
I had a stuffy nose and my eye was watering at the same time. I put things down to a sinus infection or something flu or cold related. I took paracetamol 8 x 500mg tablets every day. The pain was constant 24hrs and only relieved by the paracetamol. On the 16th of December I could not bear living under the same roof as my girlfriend, the nagging shouting and general noise was reverberating in my scull so I told her I was leaving.
I booked myself a hotel room and packed a few things and left.
After a few days with no hassle and some piece and quiet I found I could control the pain better but it was still there and I needed the paracetamol.
On December 23rd the tablets were not having any effect and I was curled up in a ball in agony.
I decided it was time to see a doctor. I told the doctor what was going on and she took my temperature and blood pressure. My blood pressure was very high so after 10 Minuit's or so she took it again, still high she said and proceeded to call an ambulance and booked me a bed in hospital.
On arrival they took blood tests and asked lots of questions, I was screaming for pain killers. They gave me 2 paracetamol and 1  50mg of tramadol. This seemed to suppress the pain a bit and I was more relaxed.
After a few more hours they put me on a fast dose of oxygen and I was nearly pain free. It felt great.
More pain killers and a few hours sleep I awoke the next morning. The consultant came to see me and said she suspected cluster head aches. I was prescribed more pain killers and sumatriptan tablets and discharged from hospital. I have to report back to my doctor to see what to do next and for more tablets.

I have had no break from the pain since the 11th until today does this sound like a CH. Anyone help ?
Ps. forgot to mention I have a dropped eye brow but had it for years.

I suffer from dyslexia so please be patient with my spelling/punctuation.

Thanks in advance for any replies or advice on what to do next. Regards Ian

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welcome and all the best
the bb

the thing about cluster headaches is that there is pain free time in between them.  It may just be semantics?  Is there pain free time of even a few minutes and then another round starts, or is it constant?

It is encouraging that the O2 helped. Did they say you can have a script for home for that?

Charlotte

Charlotte wrote on Dec 29^th, 2008 at 4:04pm:

the thing about cluster headaches is that there is pain free time in between them.  It may just be semantics?  Is there pain free time of even a few minutes and then another round starts, or is it constant?

Quote:

I took paracetamol 8 x 500mg tablets every day...

With that much paracetamol a good part of the headaches might be rebounds.
Just a thought.

Oliver

Thanks for the links BB I have printed them off, Its a lot to try and understand at the moment.

Charlott, I don't know if there has been a pain free time or if it was the pain killers doing there job when I had no pain. Today I have only took half my normal dose of pain killers. Normally 1 tramadol 50mg with 1000mg of paracetamol taken 4 times a day, so its hard to see if the pain eases at times. I feel better today but I know its still there and if it starts getting worse I will try one of the sumatriptan tablets.

When they put me on the o2 they said it would be for 20 Min's. They must of forgot because it was on for an hour and a half. I was so relaxed I started to drift off to sleep.

I don't know if I can have o2 prescribed, the hospital did not say much at all about dealing with it in the future. I am going to my GP again tomorrow to discuss this.

Thanks Ian

Painkillers do squat for CH. I would beg, no demand the 02 from the GP. They will be hesitant, pending a clear diagnosis from the neurologist. Depends on the doc. You should get a referral for the neuro ,proper diagnosis, and a treatment plan going in the least.
all the best
the bb
did you take the cluster quiz on the left, or right of the screen?
let us know how you did

Pain killers usually(!) don't do anything for CH since they take far too long to get into the system to be effective.
I'm not saying there aren't long time (>180 min.) hits but these are rare.
From the way you describe it I rather think that you get hit pretty often and that the high dosage of pain killers adds to it too.

Oliver

The paracetamol I was taking before I went to the doctors was doing very little if anything for the pain.
Its after getting prescribed Tramadol I have some relief from the pain.
When I think back to day one when this started it was coming in waves of pain, sometimes screaming into my pillow and other times lying on my back whimpering and rubbing my head. These may of been the hits people talk of.

I am pain free at the moment and hope it never comes back.
I will take a look at the quiz now.

Just looked at the quiz but most of the questions I cannot answer, IE length of pain and pain free times and this thing only started on the 11th of this month so I don't know enough about how regular it affects me.
I think its a bit early days to take the quiz until I understand what exactly is happening.

Be SURE that you don't take excess Sumatriptan. It's not a pain killer - it acts by causing the arteries in your head to constrict.  Unfortunately it can also do the same thing to your heart.

If oxygen worked for you, try to get away from the pain killers and focus on getting oxygen one way or another.

Thanks fo your advice mark.

I have had a terible night. As I wrote erlier I was going to have a night without pain killers. Soon as I went to bed I felt and was absolutly freezing cold covered in pimples. No sleep at all and then it came at 4am but on the other side of my head, my right temple only. I took one sumatriptan tablet and lay back down.  Now I know what the clusters are because I can feel them without the pain killers I would say every 15 to 20 mins lasting 10 mins at a time. I am having one now as I try and type and its 8.30 am so they are still going.
Are fevers related to these aches or could it of been a cold turkey from comming off the pain killers.

coming off of painkillers cold-turkey can really mess you up.

I went to the doctors today and it turns out I have a virus. I may have picked it up in hospital. This on top of the head aches was not good.
Flu like and nausia and a bad fever. So it was no cold turkey after all. On a good note I took one sumatriptan at 3am this morning and I slept till 8am :) I think that is the first sleep since 24th Dec.

Cheers for good sleep!

Hopefully it wasn't a super icky nasty virus, and they have some help for you. I know when RJ had a staph (sp) infection not too long ago it set his headaches screaming >:(

Hoping for more sleep for you and a speedy recovery from your virus [smiley=hug.gif]

All the best,
Minxy