has anyone tried a warm towel/ heating pad. Has anyone tried a cold towel or ice pack to the head. Do you think this would work and which one better.

I see my neruo in 2days. recommend any meds i should try?????

Cold works best for me. I used to pack my neck and attack side of my head in ice. It helped a little.

When you get to your neuro, insist on oxygen.

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Read this link. Tell your neuro it's critical you have a home oxygen set up, with a NON RE BREATHER MASK, and a regulator with a minimum flow rate of 15 LPM. If he refuses, he knows nothing about CH. That means you can stay with him, and hurt for years, or find someone who knows about CH.

This is not a condition condusive to sitting in front of a doc and saying fix me. Most docs just don't know enough about CH to help you. It's critical you become your own best advocate.

If he knows about CH his recomendation should sound something like this:

A 10-14 day prednisone taper, starting at 60-100 MG and tapering down to zero. This should give you a break from beasty while you start your prevent.

A prevent med. Verapamil, lithium and topomax are the most common. Most take up to 2 weeks to become effective, thus the prednisone to give this time to happen.

OXYGEN OXYGEN OXYGEN!!!

The safest, most effective abortive, with the least amount of side effects. I abort my attacks in 6-8 minutes. If he won't go with oxygen, DUMP HIM  QUICKLY >:(

Hoping you found one who has a clue about CH. Let us know how it goes.

Joe

Quite a few people have tried cold or heat to help alleviate a CH with examples including hot / cold showers, frozen peas, ice, air con outlets, hot towels, wheat bags and more. For others, this approach doesn't help. So it's a matter of experimenting to see if any of them work for you.

As for medications, you're first looking for a definitive diagnosis of CH (or reconfirmation) before determining which medications to use.

First off you need a preventive, typically starting with prednisione on a taper dose, starting at abour 60-80mg and then tapering off to nothing over about 7-10 days. This will give time for a long term preventive to build up.

Verapamil is the most commonly used, probably 360-480mg a day, but the effective dose may be more or less. Other ones include lithium and topomax. As to which one is best for you, that is up to the neuro as they look at your medical history, other medications, etc.

For aborting CHs, make sure you insist on having medical oxygen, delivered at at least 15lpm (higher is better) via a non-rebreather mask. Using this combo I can kill off my CHs in about 5 minutes.

Imitrex injections or nasal spray is also very commonly used for when it isn't practical to have oxygen, however this is a lot more expensive than oxygen and it has side effects too.

There are lots of other options, read up here on the forums and you'll see them, but the above are the ones most likely that you'll be given.

Our repeated discussion clearly lead to--both work. All you can do is try. Technique range from ice pack or packages of frozen veggies or putting you head into the freezer.

Head by hot packs or using a hair dryer to hit the, for example, temple.

See PDF file for the latest evaluation of meds for Cluster.

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Actually, neither work for me. I can't stand anything touching my head or face during a hit, and the mere presence of heat or cold does nothing to alleviate the pain or duration. Maybe I'm just one of those odd ducks. I wish it were so simple for me, though. Blessings. lance

I wish it were so simple for me, though. Blessings. lance

I suspect very little about you is simple Lance! ;)

Joe

cold packs work best for me..

Hot,cold no effect on me.

Oxygen and imitrex spray.

Ask you doc if he knows what CH (not cluster headaches) but just CH is. If he says no find the nearest door.

Ice!!!
I couldn't live without ice anymore. I discovered that trick 12 years ago. I started with ice packs, but they're not cold enough, it's got to be ice cubes with less possible plastic over it.
I don't use oxygen (probably I should but that's another story), but from what I read, I have been using ice pretty much the same way: at the first sign of a CH developing, I stick the ice pack on my neck and temple, and hold it there firmly. Most times, I can abort the hit within 10-20 minutes and go back to sleep (another hour).
I literally freeze my neck down, then the pain shifts to my temple, then I put the ice on my temple (I can't hold the ice on my temple as long though), then back to my neck, until... oh, miracle, it all stops at once. But it comes back later though.
It doesn't always work though, and sometimes I can feel it getting to kip 8, kip 9, and the usual total badtrip kip 10.
Some people told me that it was very bad for my body to freeze my neck like this. Maybe, but I don't care. Only a clusterhead can understand that: Anything!! get me anything but make it stop!!
I tried heat a very long time ago with no success, never tried again.
Oh yes, last detail: my eye is not affected by the pain anymore, just temple and neck (I wonder why). I remember in my first 'Ice years', I of course couldn't ice down my eye as much, so Ice was less effective, for the pain would concentrate there

     Ice Packs.  the medical kind.  I am like HEAD404,  I try to freeze, or make very numb, my neck/shoulder and above my ear areas.    I usually wrap in a thin towel.   I like the medical packs because as they thaw they can conform more to the curves of your body, because of the gel inside.
    I can't stand heat, unless it is a shower, more or less just to try to relax. 

Cold  packs for me!!!!!!!

I use both simultaneously, ie frozen peas in a steaming hot shower. Figure if I can't beat the bastage I'll confuse it enough to leave.

Once had the water so hot I scalded my scalp and half my hair fell out. Didn't even know until morning.

Ice Ice Baby. Those really cold gel things in the freezer always.

Start at the temple and over the eye as long as I can stand it and slowly move back towards the neck area.

Concentrate on the cold. When I feel the "brain freeze pain" over the attack is when I move backwards. 

I've always use ice. Heat only makes the pain worse.
I Seal-A-Meal'd about a dozen ice cubes in a pouch then let it thaw. Then laid it flat in the freezer to make a 5"x5" ice sheet about 1/4" thick. Works for me.

Strange thing about cold.........
Very cold weather can bring on an attack for me but when the wake-up call comes in the middle of the night I always need to get the ice pack and go outside to the coldest place I can find.