Hi all, my name is Mary, I'm 30 and I live in Seattle, WA. I experienced my first cluster at 19 and was diagnosed just under a year later when I was 20. I started out episodic and stayed that way for some time, but over the last 2 years my headaches have changed a bit and I worry I am more on the chronic side of things now.

I have tried all of the usual meds except Verapamil due to the fact that I randomly have low blood pressure and it causes me to pass out.

My doctor currently won't prescribe O2 but I am working on it.

So far all of the meds I have tried have done nothing to take the edge off and I am so burnt out on doctors that the idea of trying again and making the rounds again to try to get help sounds about as appealing as spending a day at the dentist office.

I also suffer from migraine's, fortunately things like oxycodone work really well for those, but then I end up debating whether I want to risk the pain pill triggering a CH or if I should hold up and hope the migraine doesn't get bad enough to trigger one. It's quite a game of "Pick Your Poison".

I also suffer from various mental illnesses which is just super awesome as well as very severe insomnia. Most of the medication I am on is to help me treat and cope with the insomnia and the mental illnesses.

Mostly I tough out the CH's, it's horrible. I have a constant background headache all day every day, on a good day I start getting hit by The Beast usually in the 7pm to 9pm timeframe and proceed to get 3 or 4 hits a night. I get hit on my left side, I have gotten hits on my right but not often at all. My constant headache is usually around a kip 2-4, my hits are usually kip 7-9. I have currently been in this cycle since May, and prior to that I was only pain free (but not really pain free because of my background headache that stays, just no night time hits) for about a month. My "pain free" time is getting shorter and shorter. On bad days I wake up to The Beast and I fight it all day, 10-15 attacks a day, sometimes more.

I recently started the D3 regiment so I am hoping that will start to help. I also use marijuana to help, it's legal here now but before that I had my green card so I could get it medicinally. I know the majority of people find it to be a trigger but I have found it immensely helpful. I use a vaporizer which I have found to be better than smoking (or using edibles). For me, at worst it doesn't touch the pain, but it makes me care less, it makes the anxiety and stress of it more tolerable, and it helps me relax in between hits. At best it has helped me to abort attacks if I can catch it at just the right moment, but that's not common. But for the lower level pain it does help me deal with it. It also in general helps with my anxiety, PTSD, Night Terrors, sleep, and over all mental state.

I also bust with RC seeds, I have had good luck in the past but I'm having a hell of a time getting pain free moments during this cycle. It has given me a few days pain free here and there. About 3 and a half weeks ago I started busting every 5 days religiously and will continue to do so until I can hopefully beat The Beast back into submission. I am leaving the country for a few weeks next week (completely stressed about what I am going to do while I'm gone) and when back I am going to try "magic truffles" and see if those will be better.

Anyways, thank you for reading all of this if you managed to make it all of the way through. Any suggestions or support would be so appreciated. I had what could nicely be called a "difficult" childhood and I always remember how I couldn't wait to grow up and get away from everything and live and enjoy life, and now life is so much harder than I ever imagined possible. I do things, like travel (I try to get out of the country once or twice a year), because I don't want to be held back and I don't want to lose yet another thing to pain and things I cannot control. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, I am blessed in a lot of ways, but in the end it always feels like pain trumps all.

Thanks again for reading, pain free wishes to you all!