Hey guys,

     So I'm a 20 year old college student in the States who is on my third bout of cluster headaches. My story is pretty standard...started getting them at 16, was misdiagnosed for awhile as migraines, then got a couple CT scans done, etc.
     The cluster stopped after a month and started back up my freshman year of college (18 yrs. old) for another month. It was at this point that I was actually correctly diagnosed (by myself for the most part). And now last night I had my first attack in        2.5 years right through my right eye and right side of forehead which had me crawling around my bathroom floor for 30 min.       Its just rough knowing I'm about to have a another month of these, last time I ended up building to 2-3x per day.
     I'm not sure if that was the right way to do my first post, just realized how long this is haha so I apologize for that. But yeah I'm looking forward to getting to know some of you guys, talk to some of you soon.

Welcome, Conner. Please tell us a little more. Do you have an abortive med such as Imitrex and a preventative such as verapamil? When you first feel the tingle of an attack starting you may want to down an energy drink such as Monster or Red Bull. I've had good luck with 5 Hour Energy. It can shorten the attack from 30 minutes to 10. Read up on the Vitamin D3 treatment. Ice or heat packs can help. On the left side of your screen is a yellow Oxygen info button. Read it and ask your doctor about a prescription.

Hi and welcome

Self diagnosis isn't something we recommend as there are multiple headache types with very similar symptoms and there are multiple other possible causes of the same symptoms that are non-headache related too. This is why we always recommend people work with a headache specialist as most doctors, even most neurologists lack the skill and experience to diagnose and treat CH.

As Bob said, you should have a preventive to cut down how many CHs you get and abortives to kill them off quickly if they happen. This combination makes a massive difference to how much they impact you.

But you need that confirmation of your diagnosis before you start treating yourself.