Hi, new to  this board but wanted to share this.
I suffer from cluster headaches and have since my early teen years. Trips to Doctors and prescriptions of meds never helped . Thankfully my cycles are usually separated by long periods of normalcy.

My last cycle was the wost I have ever had. By the end I was struck by one as soon as I fell asleep every night, and then generally I would get one or two more before morning. That was the hardest part, got them during day's as well usually.

I eventually went to a chiropractor, something I never put much stock in so I was skeptical when he X-rayed my neck, showed me where my vertebra are out of line, and so on. So he performed an alignment (popped my neck) and I left telling my wife, who drug me there to begin with, that this was another waste of money. I didn't have a headache that night. I went back for some more alignments and honestly I haven't had one since. when I first started having this treatment I could feel the onset of a CH, but it never developed into anything more then that.

Now of course he wants me to come by three times a week, he has bills to pay. Anyway I stopped going cause I got bills to pay as well. I will  return  at the first sign of another one though.

I would recommend trying this option to anyone suffering from these headaches.

Before my actual CH diagnosis I saw a chiropractor a couple of times for some back and neck pain issues. I told him about my headaches and he said he could "cure" them. His manipulation did relieve some of the "cluster knot" issues, but not the attacks.
After diagnosis, I saw him one more time. He told me that CH was BS and that it was the knot in my neck causing the HA's. When I explained the "cluster knot" to him he told me to leave the diagnosis to the ones capable. I told him to take a long walk on a short pier. I have never returned.
I hope your chiropractor is a little more personable and knowledgeable. Good luck!

PFD2U
Eric

Glad you found some relief, but unfortunatley I doubt it was the chiropractor. Many have posted of using chiropractors and the relief they have found from the secondary issues, like Ray was talking about. We screw up our necks, backs, shoulders, with all the tensing and fighting we do when getting hit.

I was convinced I'd "cured" my CH when I stopped using Q-tips in my ears and the headaches stopped. Then I quite drinking coffee, and they stopped. But ALWAYS, the buggers come back. Only years later when I became consistent with charting my cycles did I realize I'd hit the end of a cycle.

I sincerely hope yours never come back. Stick around the board though, gain some knowledge on the many prevents and abortives available to you. If you really have CH, I'm afraid they will come back.

Wishing you peace and pain free times!

Guiseppi

This particular chiropractor didn't fully understand what I meant by cluster headache, I don't think he ever really got it but you all know it's like trying to describe a tree to someone who has never seen one.
I know it may be a coincidence and this stroll through hell was about over anyway. I may be deluding myself but, after 25+ years of these I'm   aware of the feeling in my head that arrives unexpectedly and unannounced starting as a mild pressure behind the eye, the first day I feel this I know that in a few days I will be jolted awake by the demon with a red hot poker gouging out my eye.  I'm getting a little melodramatic. Looking over the Kip scale  I would have to say I probably got to a 7, pacing etc. but not ready to jump off a bridge. I'm also familiar with the time when my ch start to abate. I'm not trying to sell anyone but I can tell you that this session stopped in mid track.  Another point, for me I would say that ch are associated with a high stress event or period, and this latest episode was no different, nor have those stresses eased. 
I think (hope, pray) I've found the way to send my ch packing, and I hope you all find peace as well.
Wish I would have found this site last month when I was trying to outrun headaches all night.
I really think that another name needs to developed for this ailment, say cluster headaches and people just equate it with their own headaches. Thats about the same as comparing a hangnail with an amputation.

I’ll have to look for it, but I do have a pic somewhere of me with 52 acupuncture needles in my head and no it didn’t do shit for my CH but He is great when my C6-7 partially ruptured disk is giving me hell!

Rolo…

Funny, but 20+ years ago I had the same experience. Snap, crackle and pop, but i had a precurser after leaving his office, this was at the end of a year long bout, literally, and then they stopped. He also applied kinseology and acupuncture. He found that I had a number of allergies, which had rotted some of my nerve pathways, which he restored with laser acupuncture, then manipulated and did all sorts of things, poke, prod and click. The theory is that us cluster types are prone to clusters 24/7, 365 forever. Off cluster time, our bodies can keep them in check. However, the junk we eat, breath, drink and do to ourselves gets our bodies weak, where they can't defend us any more. A parallel theory is that most people have some level of allergies, but rather than running around with drippy noses all the time, the body handles them. Imagine a room of 10 people, one has the flu, and spreads it all over. 3-4 people don't get it. 3-4 get it no biggie, day or two and it is gone. 1 or two people get it and they are like near death for days, can't snap back, maybe get it again, no immune, or auto immune systems to speak of, all spent handling the rest of the crap we throw at ourselves. I think we are the latter one or two types. There is something to be said for Chiropractic, although a bunch are the see me 3 times a week charlatains, same with the other practices. I remember before I was correctly diagnosed, the dentist who sold me $6,000.00 of root canals and caps, the bastard, or some of the worthless neurologists I met over the years. If you've seen a bad Doc, buck up and get over it, keep trying. My guy sees me a couple of times a week in episode, virtually never in between. He has stopped 10-12 episodes cold, while working on me the headaches are maybe 5's on the bad ones, not tens like before, and my frequency of episode is approx one every two years, waaaay down from before.  Personally, i thought all chiropractors suck, now i just think many of them do. Also, I think the kinseology discipline is KEY. When everything is working, the body can handle this stuff, but getting there is like peeling an onion. Anyway, KEEP TRYING. What didn't work yesterday, might well work tomorrow. Tis the nature of the beast.

I dunno, but after 20 years, if I'm being fooled, its OK by me. After 18 years of near chronic CH's, averaging 1X a year 6-8 months most of them, with a LOT of solid 10's, like smash the head through the wall tens, bang the cylinder off my head just to feel a different type of pain 10's, literally, since I met my mojo Doc, for maybe 20 years now, episodes have averaged one month, once every second year, all in the fall, with most headaches 5's or less. Maybe my cycles shifted when I met him, always a possibility, but the odds are against it. I do think for my case, his onion peeling, layered approach to holistic cure, let the body heal itself has worked to a fair degree. A key to his approach is to diagnose allergies, he tests me for almost 400 environmental substances, both for allergy and deficiency. I will sometimes show deficient in Zinc and Copper, other traces sometimes, and I seem to develop allergies to nightshades, processed sugars, sometimes yeasts and other misc stuff. Again, not for everybody, but just because one has been to a single non standard medical practitioner with negative results, don't blow off the whole field, esp with a totally drug resistant bout of cluster. I don't think one in a hundred practitioners has this guy's experience. Then again, I went through maybe 50-70 doctors, not one did shit. Like the neurologist who told me nothing could be done for clusters, just bear them, the dentist already mentioned who thought root canals were the answer, maybe NE Headache Center, who blew a quick couple of grand in an hour or two, thermographing away, and just threw up their hands, or the clinic who had me up to $2,000 a month in drugs, can anyone say Acthar....? I used to council VN Vets on PTSD, back in the 70's before they even had a word for it. My council to them was if you don't find a good shrink first try, go to another, then another etc until one clicks. Or just give up, that is always an option. (not!) Same-same for clusters. My experience is that CH is over the heads of most in the medical community, they just don't care, or have not the time to study up on the glut of background it takes to properly treat clusters, that's why they call them an orphan disease. This type of board is the best thing we have going. Find a Doc who will work with you, and stay up on what other CH people are doing, and keep trying new stuff until something clicks.  Who knows, I'm probably wrong, I usually am in most everything, but that is my story, and I'm sticking to it. Soft landings all.......

I have been seeing a chiropractor for over 20 years. I was treating for my C6-7 at the time the CH started so you add it up. It may help some but I have no credence in it for CH.

Roland.

Just one question....

Over the last 200 years the modern medicine has brought us tremendous advances in health care. Life expectancy has been extended by decades by (almost) conquering infectious diseases. In olden times a broken leg crippled for the rest of lifetime, while today you are back to athletic activities in two months. With the understanding of genetics even a cure for cluster headaches may become possible.







                 

Well, boomer, lets see how your guessing is.
First, for discussion let me say, for all intents, I agree with you, prob with 95% + certainty, that Chiropractics is worthless for CH, and with almost the same degree, that the whole field is largely populated by seedy, ambulance chasing 3X a week whiplash lovers, like lawyers, maybe even worse.
Happy?
Now open your mind for a sec. What I actually said, is that the multidiscipline approach is probably what has worked for me. I think over a few decades, the applied kinesiology with restorative laser acupuncture is what has had the major effect. OK, standard medicine pans this approach, but hell, they panned acupuncture for centuries when the rest of us were looking at people undergoing open brain surgeries with a few needles and no anesthesia and then walking away from the table. Hell, took standard medicine 40 years to agree that cigarettes were bad for us, they still won't tell us that Agent Orange is poison. For newbies, applied kinesiology is a system of testing for allergies, and dietary deficiencies, also testing the nerve paths and muscles for abnormalities, then trying to heal these problems by diet, supplements a/o laser restoration. While I go through the testing and healing, I use any and every other treatment available, last night was Relpax and head massage, then pacing and three stiff cups of coffee for the morning cluster; other nights, Zomig, hot showers, who the heck knows what else. Go to any other doctor you are going to, do anything else that gives you relief, bar none. Boomer, if you think this approach prolongs anything, you're just missing what I'm saying, please feel free to go off and be ill, it might do you some good, humility beats emphatic any day, and you should try it. My CH was odd, over 20 years with absolutely no relief from any drug or therapy, sporadic oxygen relief, and total desperation. I actually met my doc after an elderly aunt shamed me into at least trying acupuncture, I was as close minded as you are, wouldn't have gone to a standard chiropractor on a bet. Again, I just throw this out because it has worked for me since 1987, every single time. I try to deal in facts, not opinion and misquotes. I don't know if it will work for anyone else, and I certainly don't pretend to be a know it all, far from it, but I thought the idea of these discussions was to share stories and experiences, not to throw darts and engage in gratuitous self puffery. If all else has failed, maybe it is worth a try, maybe not, I'm not putting a gun to anyone's head to force them into anything, or keep them from trying anything.

Restorative laser acupuncture: As the body has many nerve pathways and crossings, meridians, theory is that when an organ or something is out of normal parameters, normal signals to and from the brain are scrambled. As with other functions of the body, such as the brain, other nerve groups try to take over impaired functions, but they and associated meridians can get overloaded and malfunction, sometimes causing a cascading effect. Failings can be caused by environmental or pathological causes, but when the causes are determined, acupuncture can clear a/o restore paths and meridians. Its like having too many trains on a track system, then shunting some off to other routes so the main tracks can clear out. The root theory is that the body, over millions of years, has become adept at curing itself. Pain is the bodies way of saying something is wrong. Rather than cover the pain, or along with covering the pain, it is important to diagnose what is causing the pain, and treat the cause while treating the pain. At the same time, if there are other less obvious problems with the body's immune system, diagnosing and treating them in order is probably a good thing, back to the peeling an onion analogy, because sometimes when you find one thing out of whack, there is a more deep seated cause of this problem. Again, in my doctor's practice, he uses laser acupuncture and acupressure, along with various other things. He does NOT claim to cure CH's. His goal is to handle other things in the body as best he can, with the goal being to get my body back to a state where it can handle my episodes, ergo stop them. We wonder why in CH, we go attack free for months or years, then we go to pieces for the same periods. Perhaps it is just that we go back to our old ways out of episode, smoking or drinking and rabble rousing; eating processed foods, clotting our organs with fats and junk until the body gives up on us again and we're back in clusterville. Who Knows? With a population of one, myself, I don't pretend that my experience has any far reaching implications. I can say factually, that he stopped an almost year long episode cold, ergo not one more headache, back in 1987 when he first worked on me. Since then, I have gone to him when attacks first start,
and they have been handled in 2-6 weeks, before it was 4-12 months per episode, and individual headaches have been MUCH less severe now for 21 years. Believe it, don't believe it, like I said, no gun to your head. BTW, appreciate it if you'd back off the blah, blah stuff. Sort of rude and dismissive, and I can't see where it adds anything to civilized dialog. We're all in this together, no need to be taking pot shots at fellow posters, we're trying our honest best.

Roger.
Return key.
Good idea.
Thanks,
Chris

Laura,
Chiros are like any other medical people, they range in abilities, interests and training. I liked mine right off, he knew what clusters were, and told me upfront there probably wasn't a lot he could do for them.
For the lucky few who can pop a pill and be done with their clusters, God bless them.
Many other cases get manageable through a mix of techniques. My chiro also has licenses in Applied Kinesiology and acupuncture, and after getting my expectations way down, proceeded to stop a year long cluster attack on the second visit. Don't know if it would work for anyone else, but for 21 years, he has made my episodes a lot more manageable. For alternative medicine, probably the best bet is a multipractitioner clinic, as I don't think any one discipline has all the answers, it is more like trying what makes sense until something finally works. Took me 15 years to find this guy, but there is a lot more known about CH now than before, not saying much, its still an understudied, orphan disease.
BTW, try having the gp give you an annual checkup with blood work.
Most all insurances cover that one, he can sneak in the extra test.
I know what you mean about bucks, I'm counting Zomigs, trying to budget to the end of the month until the insurance will pick up another 8-10 of them.
Whoop de doo............
Best of luck,
Chris