I feel ya... I was naive enough to think I skipped this cycle weeks ago since the "normal" timing had come and gone... WRONG! This late cycle is actually turning out to be the longest I've had, and rather unpredictable in terms of attack times. 

I'm right with ya on the statement, "I'm hoping these damn headaches will go away...!"

Hope you have a short and light cycle.

CF,

Yep, you should have stuck around. But better late than never... read up on the O2 and what's been done there (changes have been made in the past year or so).

And this time stick around -- there are people coming on here daily who can benefit from what you have to say -- Pay it Forward - that's what we do here.

Hugs BD

Guiseppi wrote on Jul 31^st, 2009 at 8:53pm:

The last time I saw a neurologist (Back in 2003), she prescribed O2 along with Butorphanol NS (Stadol).... The O2 takes the edge off of the headaches but does not get rid of it.... The stadol usually kills the pain but tends to make me nausious (It's a synthetic opiate) and it tastes like sh_t....

I'm currently going through a period of them again and a recent head injury seems to have made them even more frequent. One morning alone I had 5 of them within a 6 hour period.... I was kinda hoping that the head injury would have knocked something loose and gotten rid of the headaches but that was wishful thinking....

How are you using the O2?  It's changed since 2003. We now use it on HIGH flow rates (15-25 liters per minute) with a nonrebreather mask (or one you can order from the ch.com store that's great) and the way you use it has changed also (read the O2 info on the left).

Are you on a prevent?  Most around here are. Each one has to find what works for them. The most popular ones are verapamil, lithium and topamax.  The drugs of choice for aborts (after the O2) are imitrex and cafergot (an old drug, but some of us feel it gives longer lasting relief).

Most of us feel any narcs are a waste of time for this type of headache and have proved to be worthless and can cause REBOUNDS. We need vasoconstrictors to stop the pain. If your doc can't understand THAT - change docs.

Head injuries can sometimes cause a DIFFERENT type of headache and you need to have this checked out. At one time I was having THREE different types of headaches and that was a fun time - they were all being treated differently. One was from a head injury (Post traumatic concussion), migraine and CH.

Best advice I can give you is get to a neuro and get an MRI and find out what's going on in your noggin. Then get on some prevents and get your O2 at the proper rate. Get with Pete (Batch) or Chuck and find out how it NEEDS to be RXed and let your doc know what you need. READ READ READ.

In the meantime, get some RED BULL (or an energy drink with caffeine and at least 1000mg of Taurine in it) and chug it at the first sign of CH and see if that helps abort the hit. It works for a lot of us.

Hope this helps a little. And hope you're out of pain soon.

Hugs BD