Are there are any common signs that a cycle is coming to an end? I know everybody is different and no two clusters are the same I was wondering what happens to folks as the beast decides to leave?

Your head quits hurtin.

            Potter

Haha thanks for that! Would never have known!

Seems a large percentage go the slow fade exit. Some get 2-3 days of butt kicking KIP 10's then they stop, some just stop. I still use the 2 week rule. 2 weeks of no hits at all, I start to wean off the lithium, dropping 150 mg a week until I'm down to zero.

Joe

There seems to be no consistent answer to this.  Some episodic's cycles end abruptly, with a high-kip attack--then nothing.  Others (like me) have fewer and fewer attacks at lowered intensity until they fade completely away.

I can't say whether yours will end suddenly or will fizzle out, but from what I've seen around here, if your cycle ends one way or the other, it's a pretty good indicator that any future cycles you have will probably end the same way.

'Course, I'll say that, and someone else's experience will be entirely different.   ;)

Best,

George 

Usually when I feel like I want to just have a beer and relax, that means it's over for me.

New guy's experience: Individual attacks end differently. Some end evenly and rapidly, as if someone was turning down a volume knob on a radio. Then again, some seem to be ending, but then jump back up as loud as they were at their peak, kind of like a CD skipping. Others just... End.

When a cycle ends, it just means no more for me. There is no show stopping pain or anything. The "final" attack in any given cycle could be a real headbanger, or it could be very mild. (This is always frightening, having been a chronic sufferer most of my my life, up until a few years ago, when I started having attacks episodically, with 2-2.5 year remission periods not being uncommon. I guess I'm still not used to being episodic at this point.)

I'm a 'fizzler' myself.

Slowly wean down in severity then may skip a scheduled hit then will just get a shadow or so in the evening for a bit then lighter and lighter shadows until nothing.

I'll wait at least a couple of weeks after the last shadow before (slowly!) going down/off any medication. 

Then it's, ah, bliss...

Some of it depends, I suppose, on whether one is chronic or episodic. We've acknowledged that chronics do have cycles of high and lower hits, and frequency, over a year's time. I know I do. So I kinda look at the low-no hits in one day's time as a cycle change. When I was episodic, I agree with Potter, I knew it was done when my eye stopped trying to vacate my body. Two weeks, as Joe said, is probably a good indicator. Blessings, lance

someone turns your calendar page in september 2100 :P

Being chronic my experiences do not apply, but over the last 12 years here I have found that MOST episodics go out with a bang.  In others words most hits ramp up in extreme intensity for a while and then just fade away.   I hope that is what is happening to you.

Hi,

I have just come to the end of my first cycle. I was getting an attack 2 times a day lasting for 4hrs if I didn't take anything for them. Within a week my attacks went from 2 a day to 1 a day then to every other day. I had one attack five days after what I thought was my last attack and now nothing for the last 15 days. ;D ;D

Like other people have said everybody is different but I hope this helps.

One week I was having attacks then the next gone . been having shadows several times a day of varying intensity since then and I'm now around the time my cycle started last year, here's hoping Ill stay with the shadows  ;)

God bless

Nigel

I was just about to ask the same question. I've been headache free for 5 days now. If there truly is a God, I thank you. I didn't know how much more I could take.

Kathleen

Mine have ended differently with each cycle. I have had some cycles, usually long lasting cycles, that fizzle out, but I have had some that end with a KIP 10 and that's it. Usually they seem to end suddenly for me, more times than not.

They end?  How come no one's told me about this?  I'm never in the loop on the good information.  :-?

The only meaningful information I can offer is that I experinece one to three months, usually - but not always in July - Sept. where CH activity decreases significantly (sometimes to just a few attacks per week).  These periods are always preceeded by clear tapering down of frequency/severity.

On the other end - the reverse is true with a clear ramping up of frequency/severity during Oct. and November.

They never suddenly slow down or speed up. 

burnt-toast
(Tom)         

I don't say they are over until it has been 2 weeks.