During this bout with my little girl's ear infection I had to sit by and watch her suffer in pain, helplessly. Nothing I could do could ease her pain.

I got to thinking. This may be the part for me that makes having CH so terrible. The helplessness of it all.

I don't mind physical pain so much. I've played many years of semi-pro football and have nearly a dozen of surgeries under my belt (well, under my knees mostly). Some of these surgeries are cited as some of the most painful ones a person can have (knee reconstructions where they drill holes through your leg bones to rebuild parts). The pain is like a vice that closes and opens slowly. It is very intense, but it is very physical. I find I can tolerate it and even control it a bit.

Now with CH, there is no control. Nothing that really makes it feel any better. No tacticle input from my body that changes its course, even a little. We all have our own rtituals (I do the rocking back and forth thing) but I don't think any of that helps the pain, it just is a respose to the pain.

Basically with other kinds of pain, even terrible physical pain, one has some control of how much they feel. CH pain is different and for me, the worst when it keeps coming and the realization hits that it is going to get worse and there is nothing I can do about it - the helplessness.

Any thoughts?

Charlie wrote on Sep 3^rd, 2008 at 4:02pm:

What? It most certainly alerts us to something wrong. It's called a defective hypothalamus. And if we don't do something about it right now, it's going to get a whole shitload worse in a hurry.