It's been a while! Some of my cluster periods, I didn't stop in. Hope all is well!
Last year, I had to start seeing a pain management doc for cervical esi's due to risky degenerated discs and osteophytes encroaching the spinal cord. C5,6, and 7.

My cluster cycle began about a week and a half ago, so I began my prednisone taper and verapmil.
The back of my neck has been having really bad nerve spasms and pain even through the 80mgs of pred, so I took a norco 10/325 mg........ about 20 minutes later I had a pretty heavy hit!!

Would this be characterized into a trigger? Our just a rare encounter?  I may discontinue until the cycle is over and just deal with the burning twitching nerve.

Any thoughts? Ideas?

The never ending battle of determining cause and effect! With as many different issues as you're having to deal with, (and sorry, that's a pretty full plate  :'( ) I hope you keep some kind of a pain journal. A one time response is hard to pin down as a trigger. In the 80's I went through a number of narcotic pain killers while they were still trying to decide what was wrong with me. Additionally, I've used narcotic pain killers for non CH related issues, while on cycle, and have never found them to be a trigger like alcohol.

That being said, CH is so damned different in every person, it may very well be a trigger for you! Thus the headache diary. Hoping you catch a break soon. [smiley=hug.gif]

Joe

Agree with Joe; likely an incidentail event.

The geneal rule: pain meds are useless for CH; when you use OTC regularly, on the belief that they are reasonably safe, the effect is, often, to increase the frequency, sometimes level of pain, of Cluster attacks.

For regular users of pain meds, the only test to see if they are causing an increase in attacks is to stop and watch for a cople of weeks.

In the "old days", IV morphine was used for severe, chronic Cluster--but that's the rare except to the geneal rule.

I was on percocet 5/325 every 4 hours after knee replacement and my CH went bezerk. Had to take 3x as much verapamil to suppress them. BTW people vary greatly in how they respond to narcotics.

I have been taking the exact same dosage of Norco for the past three years as you for Pain Management due to pelvic reconstruction.
I also had steroid taper prescribed to me during my most recent CH Cycle.
The Norco has not been a trigger for me.
The steroids on the other hand resulted in the most pelvic pain that I've experienced since the initial injury.

I've stopped looking for "triggers" and have just resigned myself to dealing with the CHs as the come.
Best of luck to you.