I'm a 27yr old girl who has now suffered from CH episodes at least twice a year for the past 6 or 7 years.  Oxygen works for me to alleviate the pain when a HA comes on, but of course, I don't always have O2 available - so I have found a method that works for me that seems to mimic what the O2 does, without the O2.  I actually figured it out one day when having the absolute WORST HA of a cluster cycle I have EVER had.  It lasted 2 days and I was completely debilitated the entire time...I even went to the dr. and had a shot for migraines (this was just before the CH diagnosis) and it only got worse.  I ended up hyperventilating because the pain was so aweful - but when I hyperventilated, I passed out (actually fainted, but did not wake back up right away).  Exhausted, from the past 2 days, I slept for 4 hours after passing out.

Anyways, after looking back at that occurrence, and soon after finding O2 to work, I have realized that it was the hyperventilating itself that took away the HA.  So now, when I feel a HA coming on (which is usually a few times a day during a cluster period), I make myself hyperventilate until the HA goes away - usually about 5-15minutes.  And yes, I do get very light-headed and tingly for a little while, but hey, the HA is gone, at least for a while.  When I am home, I also apply ice packs to my head and neck.  I get SO HOT, the ice I think just helps me to calm down a little bit so I can focus on breathing fast and hard.

Does anyone else do this?  Or have other things that work for them?

In my pre-O2 days, I did just that. Plus I applied slight pressure to my carotid artery. The combo helped, but give me O2 anytime! I can get caught without my oxygen, but it is a blunder and not something I want to repeat. Blessings. lance

Hey m.s.p.

Excellent post.  Yes, hyperventilating with good old air will work well for some folks if they can catch a cluster headache early while the pain level is relatively low.  I've also tried it many times when trapped away from my oxygen like during air travel and found it wasn't effective if the cluster headache pain level was 6 to 7 or higher.

This breathing technique works even faster to abort cluster headaches if breathing oxygen as hyperoxia is also a vasoconstrictor.

What you're doing when you hyperventilate is cast off enough CO2 to drive up the pH of your arterial blood until you reach respiratory alkalosis.  You also experienced the symptoms of paresthesia when you reached respiratory alkalosis - tingling/prickling of the extremities and dizziness... The increased pH (less acid - more alkaline) acts as a vasoconstirctor which is part of the cluster headache abort mechanism.

You're also using one of the body's homeostatic mechanisms to make this happen.  It's the level of arterial CO2 that stimulates the breathing response, not the lack of oxygen, i.e., more CO2 than normal - breathe faster and less CO2 than normal - breathe slower. 

When you've pushed your system into respiratory alkalosis by hyperventilating, you've cast off more CO2 than normal and become hypocapnic.  Chemoreceptors in the brain and large arteries sense the low CO2 condition and signal the breathing center in the brain stem to slow the respiration rate. 

This condition also triggers vasoconstriction and lowers the heart beat as part of the homeostatic process to slow the flow of blood to the lungs and allow CO2 levels to rise back to normal. 

As arterial oxygen levels can drop faster than CO2 levels rise when your breathing slows, this also explains why you passed out when your oxygen level got too low and why it's a good idea to have comfortable place to sit or recline handy if you hyperventilate to abort a cluster headache.

Take care,

V/R, Batch

Very interesting, thanks for the info!