In your experience, when a cycle is ending, do the CH attacks become weaker? I just had my first 24 hour period with no attacks. I only started veraponil 2 days ago and only at 160 mg so far so I doubt thats it. And so today after 24 hours it hit and it was only a 3 on the scale. Then I got a 4.5. Yesterday I got a 4 and that was it.  This weekend I was getting nothing but 8s and 9s.  Could this be the end of a cycle??
Its prob just wishful thinking but maybe not?

Hi and welcome.

My attacks are far more intense but less frequent at the end of my last few cycles.

 Barry :)

j0hnglist wrote on Apr 29^th, 2009 at 4:12pm:

In your experience, when a cycle is ending, do the CH attacks become weaker?

Yup, when episodic that's what happened. Weaker hits and then the night time hits stopped...then the am to noon hits...and finally the 5-7 pm killer hits (the worst then, and now as a chronic). What always seemed to happen, and ironically fervently wished for, was a final screamingly bad hit...then it was over til the next time...others have reported similar...

Best,

Jon

When I was episodic, My hits started milder at beginning of cycle and ended with intense slam times.  

I've been chronic off & on, lately since 2002, and have minicycles that end in slam times, and then start over mild - some are all low intensity & some are all high intensity, so I call them low cycle or high cycle.

Charlotte

Mine fade in....then fade out again. Hoping that's the case for you and they're on the way out.

Joe

Mine does the fade in and fade out also.  There has been a few times when it just kicked the living crap out of me at the very end and just like that its gone.  Mine just returned been getting 8 and 9 for the past week and had a monsterous 10 this morning the right side of my face is still feels like i have a trimmer.

going down the same road at the moment havent had a major hit since saturday just been shadowing all week. not counting my chickens though fingers crossed this is it for a while

mark (hopefull) :-/

Had a 5.5-6 today. The shadows are becoming the norm and lasting almost ALL DAY. Really annoying because they give me anxiety and making me think a crucial hit is coming any second. My CH is unpredictable as hell. Times of attack are changing every 2 days.  

BTW, you guys went from Episodic to Chronic? That really concerns me. Like really really concerns me.  
Do you guys think you took some treatments that turned your condition to chronic??

There has been oodles of discussion about what might turn an episodic nto a chronic. No one has found any real evidence yet of what causes some to go chronic. You can worry yourself sick over it, so be careful about dwelling on it too much! ;)

The funny thing is many of the chronics say they can't imagine how hard it would be to be episodic...never knowing when the beast will come back! ;D

Enjoy your pain free time, always be ready to do battle!

Joe

How long are your headaches lasting  j0hnglist, I am curious because I am having exactly the same, unpredictable hits, never at the same time, and being around 3-5, shadowing througout whole day and wondering because when I first took medications the pattern changed, I am also worried, why so happened, anyone with similar history and still being episodic?

No, I don't think the treatments made me go chronic.  Last time I went chronic, I was using no medications.  I used to think meds caused different symptoms but I went med free and found that the same things happen without meds.

I agree with Joe - Don't worry about going chronic, just be as prepared as possible and enjoy every pf moment.

Charlotte

man its such a relief talking to you people experiencing similar things

MattA: my headaches are usually 1.5 hours to 3 hours. I did have a couple 30 min ones on Monday that were barely there.  It started relieving my anxiety because my 3 hour level 8/9s were freaking me out. I will say, on this cycle (my 2nd ever in my life and I am 31), its been consistently changing from the very start before I took any drugs.  However, my first time taking Veraponil and Melatonin, on the exact same nite I got my first ever cluster that woke me up in the middle of the nite. Since then it hasn't happened, either because of Melatonin or by coincidence. Not sure yet. Since being on Veraponil and Melatonin I have not had a headache above a 6. But that could be coincidence too as I am not high up on Veraponil yet in dosage.

To everybody who's a  veteran of CH: Is ANBODY still a cyclic?? Or are you all chronic? Perhaps its the chronics that spend most of their time here as the cylicals probably want to aboid the issue tilll the next hit.

HEY EVERYBODY I HAVE KEPT A REALLY LONG JOURNAL FOR AZZHEAD (20 + YEARS) I HAVE NOTICED THAT HE SEEMS TO ADJUST TO WHAT EVER YOU DO TO COMBAT HIM.  SOMETIMES I GET THE REALLY WEIRD PATTERNS TOO.  CLIMATALOGICAL CHANGE REALLY PLAYS A ROLE IN HOW THIS FOOL ACTS.  GETTING A SENSATION FOLKS BYE.

last cycle i peaked hard for about 2 weeks then they phased out in 2 weeks. the cycle lasted maybe 2 1/2 months.

Like Barry and others, I experience a much higher level of pain as a cycle ends.

Fortissimo Clusters.

Bring it on. I'm ready to get this over with.

Steve G

To everybody who's a  veteran of CH: Is ANBODY still a cyclic?? Or are you all chronic? Perhaps its the chronics that spend most of their time here as the cylicals probably want to aboid the issue tilll the next hit.

31 years and STILL episodic!

Joe

Mine are still episodic after 9 1/2 years.  I think the longest I went pain free was from the summer of 2000 till Autumn 2002. I don't think  I had any CH in 2001 (I'm not 100% sure I didn't have a "mild" attack, since I hadn't been diangosed with CH yet).  Mine (according to my Neurologist, who is also a board certified headache specialist), are very aggressive (and as a result, my treatments to combat it are aggressive).  Once in a while the first attack of a cycle will be a Kip 7, but they almost always run Kip 8 or Kip 9 (with the occasional awful Kip 10) for the entire cycle.  Occasionally I'll get them during the day when I'm at work, but the majority of my CH occurs an hour or two after I go to sleep.  Sometimes I'll get them daily (which leaves me feeling punch drunk with exhaustion due to my sleep being wrecked, in spite of taking an abortive), or I'll get them every other day.  My CH occurrance typically doesn't suddenly end.  I get onesey twosies - in other words, I won't have CH for several days, and then I'll have a straggler CH, then I may or may not have another CH a few days later, and then the cycle is pretty much done.   The present cycle I'm in, the Lyrica my Neuro has put me on, has blunted my headaches to the point where they're not more than Kip 3 or Kip 4, and I'll typically just get out of bed,  and go to the bathroom, and then go back to sleep, without having to use an abortive.  The frequency of these "minor" CH attacks seem to be decreasing, so my cycle seems to be tapering off.

Guiseppi wrote on May 3^rd, 2009 at 12:41am:

To everybody who's a  veteran of CH: Is ANBODY still a cyclic?? Or are you all chronic? Perhaps its the chronics that spend most of their time here as the cylicals probably want to aboid the issue tilll the next hit. 31 years and STILL episodic! Joe

I'm your Huckleberry! Long Episodic (Oct.-July). Peak point is April - June. O2 user!! Tend to wane near end.

I'm episodic, but never made it past 2 years in my 28 years of having them.  Seems like everytime he comes back it gets worse and worse.