I’m on one of my 3 to 4 week cycles right now.

Normally I grunt and just put up with them as I know they will go away and I’ve seen how lucky I am comparably in that it does go away for years at a time.

However this one is different. I am used for it to come on either the left or right sides and stay in that one area for the duration but as of Monday last week this one has been swapping sides on me till eventually I had one in each side after each other with only a 5 min or so breathing space between them ( cant tell you how soul destroying it is when you feel the numbing easing of the thing in one side only for it to kick off on the other side )

Well I thought that was bad until the double sider of last night.I`ve not read of sufferers having both sides at once so hence I’m reading here.

Up till now as I say I have grunted and gritted my teeth through the episodes but the level of pain last night, well, I just cant describe it.

I’ve not so far sought medical help specifically now I have recognised I have CH`s, but I think maybe oxygen may help as I can reduce the pain with breathing techniques that I picked up from somewhere else on the web.



Anyway, I just wanted to say hello

I admit that this abstract is scary but it reflects how little is actually known about the meaning of side-shifting.

At this stage, do your best to not try and read into the future--that's an emotional killer! Put your focus in learning how to care for youself in the present.
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Cephalalgia. 2008 Jul;28 Suppl 1:8-11.
Epidemiology of fixed unilateral headaches.

Leone M, Cecchini AP, Mea E, Tullo V, Bussone G.

Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milano, Italy. leone@istituto-besta.it

A fixed location unilateral headache suggests involvement of a precise nervous structure, and neuroimaging investigations are essential to seek to identify it. Nevertheless, SIDE-LOCKED PRIMARY HEADACHES ALSO OCCUR, ALTHOUGH THEY ARE RARE. SIDE-LOCKED PRIMARY HEADACHES ARE MORE FREQUENTLY FOUND IN THE GROUP OF THE SHORT-LASTING (</= 4 HOURS) HEADACHES but long-lasting headache forms may also present with the pain always on the same side, including migraine, tension-type headache, new daily persistent headache and cervicogenic headache. Future studies should address the issue whether patients with side-locked headache form differ from those with non-side-locked form both in terms of natural history and biological markers. Among 63 consecutive CHRONIC CLUSTER headache patients seen by us from 1999 to 2007, 32 (51%) had side shift. We ALSO FOUND THAT THE DURATION OF THE CHRONIC CONDITION WAS SIGNIFICANTLY LONGER IN THOSE WITH SIDE SHIFT THAN THOSE WITHOUT. The high frequency of side shift in chronic cluster headache should be considered when proposing surgical treatment for severe intractable forms of the disease.

Publication Types:
Review

PMID: 18494985

Thankyou all for your comments