Hi everyone,
my name is Kenny Lewis. I'm a 24 year old South GA resident. I've been fighting the beast since I was 12! Like many others I thought I was all alone with this crippling pain. I went many years without ever knowing what was wrong with me. In fact only three years ago I first learned there was a term for it.......CLUSTER!!!!!!!! Just seeing that word spelled out makes me cringe a little!
            I actually went to a couple of optometrists as a kid only to learn that I had allergy eyes and the pain I was experiencing was just coming from the crust that was building up on my eylids, thus scratching the eyeball. They said it seemed to be more present in my right eye and kindly dismissed me......But not without that eighty dollar bottle of miracle drops that was gonna make me all better!  Yeah right..........I spent the next few years explaining to my parents that this was not just a "scratched" sensation I was experiencing. I remember thinking how much it sucked to not be able to ever fully expess just how much pain I was going through to all the "non-cluterheads"!  People would always recommend their favorite headache meds, telling me how much they worked for them! I would always nod agreeably, knowing I had at one time or another taken everything that could be purchased at the local grocery store, only to find that it did nothing more than dissolve in my stomach while I waited for an additional 1 to 3 hours for my cluster to subside on its own time and terms.
           Then one day (bout 3 yrs ago) my beautiful girlfriend and I went on one of our weekly excursions to the Goodwill. And wouldn't you know it, minutes before actually entering I began to feel the old recognizable Beast beginning his glorius delivery of sweet agony!!! I went straight to the furniture section not wanting to cut my girlfriend's excursion short, as I had done so many times before. But she's a a smart, observant girl and had no trouble in discovering that I was about to begin my ritualistic dance of beating my scull and begging GOD to please take the pain away. Fed up with seeing me hurt and not being able do anything she went straight to the literature section. There she found, or God showed her I should say, a book about all the different types of headaches. I think it was simply entitled, Headaches. Some sort of medical practitioners text or something. She skimmed through the pages landing on a page that said in big bold letters: CLUSTER HEADACHES. After reading what she had found she rushed over to me, where I was now searching for anything I could possibly stab into my brain and end it all right there in the Goodwill! She said in her calm yet wise tone, "I really think you should sit down and read this".  I thought yeah right.....I really feel like sitting down and straining my tear filled eyes on some fine print right now!  Moments after reading the symptoms, for the first time in my life, I thought wow thats exactly what I'm feeling! It went on to explain how rare this condition was, affecting some 1 in 1000 people. I remember thinking, oh my God there are others going through this $hi+!!! For some time up until that point I was pretty certain that I probably had a brain tumor or something and that I would never be able to afford the MRI to prove or disprove this theory.  But today, I now know that I'm a clusterhead. Between reading that book and all the stories and posts I have found here, I don't have any doubts! Now if we could only find a promising cure to make us normal I think our lives would improve greatly! Thank you all so much for listening and more importantly thanks for understanding.    
                   Dances with Beasts

This Topic was moved here from Editing Your Profiles by Melissa.

Welcome to the board!!! Yeah, you're not crazy and you're not alone anymore. Now lets figure out what we can do to help you. Read the link on the left, oxygen info. It's cheap and I can abort an attack in 6-8 minutes with just 02. Worth a shot.

For now go buy a couple of energy type drinks, rock star, monster, any containing the combo of caffeine and taurine. Slam one down at the first sign of an attack. Many can abort ot at least substantially reduce the intensity of a hit using them. Some keep open cans in the fridge so they go flat and are easier to chug.

Read, read, read. Knowledge is your best weapon against the beast. You have much reading to do!

Welcome home.

Joe

Welcome home, friend.  Quite a serendipitous find at Goodwill!  And what an INCREDIBLE girlfriend you have! she can get support as a supporter here, too.  So welcome to both of you.

Oxygen is great, and there's the "synergy" herbal mix that has helped lots, and of course the clusterbusters.com method has been highly effective for many folks too.  Just keep reading and learning.
-Paige

Thanks Paige...that was totally my bad overlooking the supporter! Give her a hug for me and thank her for sticking with you through this. She might want to register on the board and hang out in the supporters section. Our supporters are gold!!!!

Joe

"Temple Punchers"  Now there's a new one.   ;D

Welcome Kenny.



Linda

Goodwill?  Go figure!  That's got to take the cake for "most unique place to have the lightbulb go off!"

Welcome Kenny.  Lots of "experts" to learn from here, so read until you can't read any more.  And if you are able, get yourself to a neurologist who can give you an official CH diagnosis.

Wishing you pain-free days ahead...

Scott