For several years I was running 3 distinct cycles per year but for the past 15-18 months things are very different. My cycles are shorter in duration (4-5 weeks) but I rarely get a week of no symptoms before a new cycle starts. The question on my mind is whether the daily dosage of verapamil has created this change, or have I now turned from episodic to chronic - Ok, I KNOW it's now considered under clinical definition to be "chronic" but is that a true change in condition or one brought on by the daily meds?

On a positive note I now only have level 7-9 pain for 2-3 days and by then the prednisone kicks in and disrupts the cycle. Pain levels diminish to the 3-5 level and headaches & shadows are less frequent during the remainder of the cycle term. I'd much rather have these present conditions than the previous long cycles with higher intensity throughout.

J Headache Pain. 2005 Feb;6(1):3-9. Epub 2005 Jan 25.

Chronic cluster headache: a review.

Favier I, Haan J, Ferrari MD.

Department of Neurology, K5-Q Leiden University Medical Centre, 9600, 2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands.

Cluster headache (CH) is a rare but severe headache disorder characterised by repeated unilateral head pain attacks accompanied by ipsilateral autonomic features. In episodic CH, there are periods of headache attacks with pain-free intervals of weeks, months or years in between. A minority of patients have the chronic form, without pain-free intervals between the headache attacks. Chronic CH can occur as primary or secondary chronic CH; the rarest form is episodic CH arising from chronic CH. In this article, we give a review of the chronic forms of CH and focus on demographics, clinical manifestations, social habits, predictive factors, head injury, genetics, neuroimaging and therapy. IT IS REMARKABLE THAT LITTLE IS KNOWN ABOUT RISK FACTORS THAT MAKE CH CHRONIC.

Publication Types:
Review

PMID: 16362185 [PubMed] 

Thank you Bob. I've read much the same and it's still not clear to me where my recent symptoms fit. I guess it really doesn't much matter which hole the block fits in - it is what it is.