Sounds like you’re having a pretty rough time. Some thoughts and some questions:

- I'd like to hear exactly how you are using O2?

- Have you explored with your Doc raising your Verapamil dose to more therapeutic level? (This is where I would focus, right after proper use of O2)

- Some people report getting great relief from Imitrex, but they get a larger number of hits.

- How often are you taking the Prednisone? Is that 20mg per day?

Merry Christmas

Also look at researching the terms rebound headache and medication headache.

Hoping Christmas is treating you well,

B.

Check out clusterbusters.com.  Read all the info, and check out the links to MAPS and the clinical studies going on at Harvard and Yale.  There's hard science behind this. 

It's much harder to abort an ongoing cycle than to prevent one, but in the middle of my cycle I got several week-long stretches of complete relief after each dose.

The only suggestion I have is trying the 1-2 punch I use. Oxygen will abort an attack for me in about 6-8 minutes, but it comes right back within 20 minutes of shutting down the 02.

Now I take an oral cafergot as soon as I start the oxygen. The 02 knocks it down, the cafergot will buy me up to 12 hours pain free time. Cafergot is an old school CH med that fell out of favor bcause it takes 10-15 minutes to get into your system, so used by itself, it didn't work well for CH. Combining it with the 02 has worked well for me for many years. Others have posted similar results.

Certainly not a doctor here, but given the number of painkillers you're talking about, I'd be worried about rebound headaches too.

Hang in there, sounds like you're in a nasty patch right now!!!

Joe

I'm struck by the low Pred dosing. It's not uncommon to start a taper at 100mg. Would explore this with the doc.

Ditto with Verap. Print following for him------
========
Headache. 2004 Nov;44(10):1013-8.  

Individualizing treatment with verapamil for cluster headache patients.

Blau JN, Engel HO.

   Background.-Verapamil is currently the best available prophylactic drug for patients experiencing cluster headaches (CHs). Published papers usually state 240 to 480 mg taken in three divided doses give good results, ranging from 50% to 80%; others mention higher doses-720, even 1200 mg per day. In clinical practice we found we needed to adapt dosage to individual's time of attacks, in particular giving higher doses before going to bed to suppress severe nocturnal episodes. A few only required 120 mg daily. We therefore evolved a scheme for steady and progressive drug increase until satisfactory control had been achieved. Objective.-To find the minimum dose of verapamil required to prevent episodic and chronic cluster headaches by supervising each individual and adjusting the dosage accordingly. Methods.-Consecutive patients with episodic or chronic CH (satisfying International Headache Society (IHS) criteria) were started on verapamil 40 mg in the morning, 80 mg early afternoon, and 80 mg before going to bed. Patients kept a diary of all attacks, recording times of onset, duration, and severity. They were advised, verbally and in writing, to add 40 mg verapamil on alternate days, depending on their attack timing: with nocturnal episodes the first increase was the evening dose and next the afternoon one; when attacks occurred on or soon after waking, we advised setting an alarm clock 2 hours before the usual waking time and then taking the medication. Patients were followed-up at weekly intervals until attacks were controlled. They were also reviewed when a cluster period had ended, and advised to continue on the same dose for a further 2 weeks before starting systematic reduction. Chronic cluster patients were reviewed as often as necessary. Results.-Seventy consecutive patients, 52 with episodic CH during cluster periods and 18 with chronic CH, were all treated with verapamil as above. Complete relief from headaches was obtained in 49 (94%) of 52 with episodic, and 10 (55%) of 18 with chronic CH; the majority needed 200 to 480 mg, but 9 in the episodic, and 3 in the chronic group, needed 520 to 960 mg for control. Ten, 2 in the episodic and 8 in the chronic group, with incomplete relief, required additional therapy-lithium, sumatriptan, or sodium valproate. One patient withdrew because verapamil made her too tired, another developed Stevens-Johnson syndrome, and the drug was withdrawn. Conclusions.-Providing the dosage for each individual is adequate, preventing CH with verapamil is highly effective, taken three (occasionally with higher doses, four) times a day. In the majority (94%) with episodic CH steady dose increase under supervision, totally suppressed attacks. However in the chronic variety only 55% were completely relieved, 69% men, but only 20% women. In both groups, for those with partial attack suppression, additional prophylactic drugs or acute treatment was necessary. (Headache 2004;44:1013-1018).

If you want to try the "indole-ring abortives" (aka clusterbusters) but can't get the shrooms, most people don't realize that it's actually legal to buy LSA seeds (myself included!)   There's a couple of distributors listed on clusterbusters that sell pesticide-free seeds, and they are very cheap.

I personally recommend Rivea Corombosa seeds over the other species, because (supposedly) they give you less nausea than the others...I didn't get nauseous at all, in fact.  I paid $50 at Iamshaman for 500 seeds, and put on an extra $18 for overnight shipping...that's 8-10 doses for most people.