Hello everyone... I've visited here for the past several years but have never posted much.  But recently I've learned something that I hope might be able to help other people.

Like many of you I had a hell of a time getting enough Imitrex injections so I did use the imitrex tip.  Normally I would take 1/3 of an injection and that would be enough to abort the headache.  In the past while doing this I was getting 2-4 headaches a day during active cluster periods.

I was in remission for about 18 months, and I started getting them again about 3 weeks ago. This time, though I had a stockpile of about 25 injections saved up in my cabinet ready to go, since during my remission time I kept refilling all my shots in anticipation of the next attack.

So I stared aborting them like I always did, 1/3 of a shot.  And they all worked great.  I was also trying Oxygen this time for the first time.  The O2 wasn't very successful, and whenever it was, I ended up getting another attack in about an hour.

I went for about a 2 weeks getting 2-4 attacks per day, always starting in the morning.  One time, I decided to use a full injection in the morning.  When I did that, I got no other attacks the rest of the day.  I've never tried this before because I always viewed it as wasting 3 shots on one headache, but this time I had the means to use full injections with my little stockpile.

The next day, same thing... 1 full injection and no more attacks.  I've been doing this for about 2 weeks now, and one full injection seems to be enough to keep the rest away for the day.  I'm thinking that the small dosage of the imitrex and the O2 were causing rebound headaches... and I'm wondering if using the Imitrex tip was causing this all along.

So if anybody is doing 1/3 of 1/2 of an imitrex dose and getting another attack within a few hours I would suggest you try to use a full dose and see what happens.  Also, I try to wake up about an hour before the morning attack happens, and drink a large cup of coffee... and for the last 2 days at least this has prevented an attack.

Good luck everyone, hope it helps.

Norm

Good info, Everybody has different reactions to the same thing when your talking CH. I use the nasal spray (20mg) only for the bad hits but after I do use one it will be days before I get hit again.

That is an interesting result you got there Norm.

I'm afraid it doesn't work that way for me, as I have memories of aborting 5 attacks in one day with 5 full dose imitrex injections during one particularly desperate high cycle.

I wouldn't take more than two Imitrex full injections in a day. That level of Triptan in your blood could do some serious damage to your ticker. That said, I have doubled up injections before and only got relief from the second injection. You're not supposed to do that either. I think we all have our desperate moments. -Chris

Yep Chris - and that's not the only desperate stunt I've pulled I'm afraid.

At least during my last episode when I was using hi flow non rebreather O2 as a first line abortive (learned about it here), I don't think I ever had to go past 2 full imitrex injection doses per day - even on my couple of most outa control days.