Hello,

Nice to meet all of you!  I am 29 years old and have had these headaches for almost 10 years now.  When I initially started getting these headaches they were extremely painful.  I almost always woke up with one(several times a night).  The pain was unbearable.  The pain in the right side of my head in front of my right eye felt like something was trying to push it out of the socket.  My right eye would water, get bloodshot, and my right nostril would run.  They never last longer than an hour, usually around 20-40 minutes.  I would do anything to make the pain stop: hot showers helped, like as hot as I could stand it.  It would be 2 am and I'd be sitting in the shower.  My episodes would typically last anywhere from 2 weeks to a month and then disappear  for months.  I remember at one point they were gone for almost a year and I thought they were finally gone. Wrong!  I have never taken medication for them.  I was once prescribed muscle relaxers, which were a joke.  The cycle of several weeks on, several months off continued for many years, probably up until that last two.  During that time, when I got them, the pain was severe.  Over the last couple years they have not gone away.  However, the severity of them doesn't seem as intense, more like extremely annoying, though I still do get severe ones now and then-the ones at night are the worst.  It's almost like I can feel it sitting there on the back right side of my head, just waiting to trigger.  Throughout the years I have found certain things that would alleviate them....sometimes INSTANTLY.  I'm talking unbearable pain, to sudden stop.  When I get these headaches the pain is most severe in the front of my head on the right side, even the veins on my right temple bulge during an episode.  I also get a rather irritated feeling in my neck that goes down to around my shoulder blade on the right side.  Probably the path of the nerves and what not that stem from the source.  I have found that moving my body in a certain position can many times stop the headache instantaneously.  The problem is, its generally never quite the same but I know it when I find it cuz it's like an immediate relief feeling.  Sometimes the headache will die right then or the pain will lesson to a tolerable degree and then slowly disappear.  So what do I do?  Well, like I said, its generally different each time but one thing that sometimes helps is to grab something up high that can support your weight "with" the arm of the side that is affected.  For me, I grab an opened door edge.  Just don't break your door or whatever you use. Now allow your body to kinda hang, like dead weight and stretch out your arm and the muscles that run along your back.  Try turning and pulling at different angles and you might feel a sudden letup in your headache.  Another trick, lie down on your back with your head tilted back as far as it will go.  Now tilt your head side to side and sort of contort your back in the same time so you feel the tendons in your back kind of stretching.  I know this sounds silly but if you keep doing this kinda crap you will suddenly find a sweet spot.  Probably 80% of the headaches I get, If I do these kind of stretches I can rid them before they reach "eye popping" pain.  One last trick is lie on your belly on the floor with your arms pointing straight out.  Now keep your arm straight and start to roll back onto your arm.  Don't hurt yourself, but stop just as you reach the point where it starts to hurt and hold it.  Again move your back in certain angles while holding this position.  Some of you may think I'm crazy but when it's 3am and your in severe pain you try just about everything imaginable.  These are things that I have found, in my moments of pain and through the years, to many times stop the progression of one of these and many times instantly relieve a biggy.  Hot showers seem to help to, something about the hot water hitting your body seems trick your body into forgetting about the other pain.   Sometimes touching a cold ice pack to various parts of your head during the shooting pains helps too, probably for the same reasons.  Also, taking deep breaths and letting them out slowly can help.  I have even closed my eyes, pictured drilling a hole in my head and as I slowly breathed the air out, pictured the pressure releasing in my head.  Yes, believe it or not, it has worked.  Perhaps mind over matter? Who knows.  Anyway, its nice to have found a place where I am not alone.  I keep praying that one day I'll wake up headache free and it will be my last.  Cheers!