Welcome Shuli! So sorry you're having a rough time of it. Personal experience doesn't afford me any insight into what you are going through, my husband (the sufferer) gets a sense of euphoria once the cycle is broken, but I sympathize. Personally how all CH sufferers aren't walking around with PTSD I don't know.

Keep posting, we'll keep responding, and we'll all work to get you back to where you want to be.

I'd say preparation would help. Research and build your arsenal so you're ready for battle the next time you get a cycle. Action and decision making are tough during depression, but they help pull you outta it. The folks here have quality lives and marriages and friendships. Life can be good- even with CH. I promise.

Serotonin is a major player in depression; serotonin is a major player in CH. . .I'm not a doctor, didn't stay at Holiday Inn, but I'd have to say where there's smoke, there's fire.

See a fuller discussion on what is depression on page 2
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DEPRESSION IN CLUSTER HEADACHE

Is depression commonly experienced with CH? An often asked question and one which cannot be answered easily because the word--"depression"-has been so muddled that using it, without careful definition, is very misleading.

I'm blue, down, sad, in a funk, and so on. In daily speech, we describe these feelings as "depression."

I'm in deep grief over the death of a loved one; or, my house has been destroyed along with all my priced possessions by a tornado. I'm "depressed".

These are wide-ranging emotions but we use the same word to describe them. At what point do we move from a "normal" emotional state to "clinical depression" which might benefit from some professional assistance? As we usually use the word, "depression", the word, by itself,  does not give any help in making this judgment.

The issue is more complex even when we have a chronic pain disorder or chronic disease of some kind. People with such problems are not automatically depressed but they might become depressed! A play on the word: If I have chronic CH, I may experience a bad day but it doesn't last for weeks OR the emotion might not pass.  This factor: duration of the emotion, is one of the key factors to separate normal (ND) from clinical depression (CD).

I'm having a series of CH attacks and that puts me "down" but when I'm not in pain I can enjoy my family or a supper with friends, etc. The ability to have a positive response which would be expected to pleasant activities: Another marker separating ND from CD.

I'm normally a health person for someone my age but, for reasons which don't make sense to me or my physician, I'm always feeling fatigue, pains, gut distress, or any variety of physical complaints. This pattern is suggestive of CD. We might include insomnia which is not explained by a nighttime CH attack.

Space limitations on our site apply! Issue of depression can be explored at: Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or or any of a number of health sites.

Amen to that. Don't know what of do if I hadn't found this site. There's nothing worse than finally being pain-free and still feeling lousy. Keep an eye on it. Talk to someone you trust now so that if it gets worse you have someone who is already aware of what's happening. You don't have to go through this alone.

~ Katie

How does one maintain a training regimin?

Livin life between the hits! I try to change as little as I can when on cycle, it's my way of thumbing my nose at the beast. Doing a cross country bike ride leaving March 20, 60 days, 50 on the bike, 10 rest days, coast to coast! Hoping the beast can't find me.

Joe

I'll put details out as the route gets planned...would be fun to see how many CH'ers I could meet for coffee accross the country!

Joe

I've had depression during nasty cycles - especially because my sleep gets wrecked by the CH waking me up, and having to deal with pain until the abortives work.  Post cycle - just trying to recover from the exhaustion of ruined sleep can also give me low grade depression.  My neuro uses Lyrica to bust my cycles (I won't allow her to use Methergine, due to the expensive preventatvie chest x-rays, and echocardiograms that go hand in hand with taking Methergine for longer than a 1 week period [even with insurance, I still owe $2000 from the last time I used it in 2008]), and wouldn't you know it, Lyrica is know to cause depression.  So, even though I know the Lyrica is making me feel like I have a back cloud overhead, it still can suck at times. 

Skyhawk5 wrote on Oct 31^st, 2010 at 11:14pm:


I remember very clearly a time not too long ago, I was waiting at that place where everyone knows your name...the pharmacy...and while a Rx was filled, I wandered over to the book section. I found there a medical text on painful conditions and the sort of treatments recommended or used. I looked up trigeminal pain because of the cluster headache associations, and found just what you were saying, Don. There are some whose pain is so intense, so unrelenting, and so unyielding ever they are put into chemical comas because they cannot cope. My hits, and my pain, were bad. But I thanked God right then and there that I was not that bad.

Cold comfort, I know. But comfort still. I knew I could survive, I would survive, I would live in between hits, and I would keep faith. I, too, was saved by this site and would do nothing intentionally to betray that trust, confidence and community we offer one another.

Pax and blessings! lance

PS Hey Joe, if you get to the NE area, let me know. We'll find a way to at least meet. And if you need a turnaround crash site or something, let me know. There's a room awaitin' ya in MA.

wimsey1 wrote on Nov 1^st, 2010 at 8:18am:


I'm so glad I clicked on this thread.  This post has really helped me.

It's 06:25am here in England right now, and I've just got out of bed after being woken up for the 4th time tonight with my 4th CH of the night.

I've run out of sumatriptan (a couple of weeks ago) and haven't had the money to get a taxi to my doctor's office, so I've been using cheap ibuprofen and suffering 30-45 minutes of agony each time, waiting for it to take effect.

This is the second night in a row I've had 4 attacks in a night, which yesterday was my new record.

I'm feeling rough as hell from lack of sleep and ludicrous amounts of ibuprofen in my system and during attack 4 I was seriously considering phoning an ambulance to take me to the local hospital in the hope I could get some sleep there.

Your post helped me re-realise that there are people out there that have it even worse than I do, and that has helped break my instantaneous post-CH mindset that I had when I came downstairs, so I just want to say thanks for that.

As for the original topic, that of depression + CH, I've had a number of periods of depression in my adult life, though I've always attributed them to other aspects of my life as various negative things have been happening at the time that I assumed triggered the depression... deaths in the family, bad break-ups etc... but now I'm wondering whether being a CH sufferer might make someone more succeptable to depression in the first place.  If so, it'd make me feel better about my periods of depression, because it would mean I'm not just an emotionally fragile child in a man's body. 

Hey musophil, you're welcome. It's what we're here for. And yes, as you've gleaned, CHs as a primary headache, are themselves a cause of depression. And it is possible the very same mechanisms that cause CHs could be involved in producing clinical, or characterological, depression. They are certainly enough to be depressive all by themselves. Hang in there. Read the O2 link at the left. It's cheap, effective, and available from a wide variety of outlets. Blessings! lance

So glad you updated us, I've been wondering how you were doing!

So very glad you are doing better- LOVE to hear things like that! Wishing you many painfree days!

Shuli wrote on Nov 3^rd, 2010 at 12:55pm:


Me too.  Especially hearing it described as "The Dance".  What a wonderfully disempowering term for something that must look to an outsider like the actions of a person you would only usually see in a rubber room wearing a jacket with arms that tie behind the neck.