It seemed such a good idea nearly four weeks ago to stop ALL the drugs take a break and then s-l-o-w-l-y introduce the new preventative regime from the consultant neurologist.



B. migraines have gone back to two to three a week which does not sound bad but they last 48-72 hours. I keep getting some nasty 'icepicks' that have been making me cringe just in case thats tryingt o make a reappearance and this morning when I woke at 4.30am yelling and crying cos the dream about being burned round my face turned out to be pain....thankfully it settled down to dancing all over my trimalgic nerve. Yep the trimalgic neuralgia has come back after so many migraines in a short space of time right after a cluster period. I don't remember ordering THAT for christmas.

My GP has written a scrip with enough Maxalts and Solpadol to cover the Christmas period.

I suspect the dose for Atenolol is not high enough yet.

And I am sick of soup cos if I dare chew anything...... not fair not fair its not frigging fair.

Just wait till I do see the pain speciliast nurse at the headache clinic next year. 
Sorry just needed to whine before my home fills with teens, house guests and chaos.

Hi Roland,
The UK has a different system. My primary care is via my GP, I access a tertitary service consultant neurologist [Prof] via the secondary clinic at a local hospital.

This time round the clusters lived up to their nickname so by the time I did see the neurologist the nerves on the left had hit pretty inflamed. The neuralgia is not a primary its a reaction to getting 4-6 cluster hits per day during the fun autumn season.
He did not lie to me. He did explain in detail why he wanted to stop all the other drugs and warned it could cause problems as the migraines are classed as severe, what he is aiming to do is get better control of the migraine and use drugs that will allow for a higher dose of other drugs for nailing clusters starting with steroids ASAP.

Got to add the neuralgia is no where near as painful as clusters but pain is now old and boring and if it does not settle down using the tried and trusted  that help over the weekend I will be back at the docs Mon.
Solpadol, tiger balm and hot compresses are helping as is remembering to wear a hat.

I did not make my friend eat teeth yesterday when she came out with 'Cluster headaches? Oh those are easy to treat, how many asprin did your doctor tel you to take?' [She is a qualified nurse.