Hey everyone! Sorry my first post is so long. TL;DR version at bottom.

So, after a long remission, I am currently going through my
third period of cluster headaches.

The last two periods, I mostly just suffered through them. I tried a few home remedies, but nothing really worked. Luckily, they only lasted about 2 months or so each time.

Now, I'm about a month into my third period, I am back in my desperate, I will try anything to stop the pain mode. The main difference between this time and the previous periods is that this time I am an adult with a job, not a student.

I'm an expat living in China, so I thought, hey might as well go into a medicine shop and see what they recommend.

My Chinese is quite good (not fluent, but I always know whats going on). She offered me two different kinds of medicine. One she said was Chinese medicine, that would work if I took it over a long period of time. The other she said was Western medicine, and would work much quicker. I, obviously, went for the western medicine. It was a tablet with two ingredients, caffeine and some other ingredient that I didn't recognize.

When I bought them, I had just recovered from a terrible headache, so I thought I would pop a couple and see what happened. After an hour, my hands started shaking a bit and I felt a bit hyped up, but that usually happens when I have caffeine, so I figured everything should be fine.

The next two days, just before I knew I would be getting an attack, I took a couple more. Amazingly, one time it was completely effective, and the other time I only felt a bit of pain, but a completely manageable amount of pain. I was on cloud nine! I thought, wow, whatever this is, its amazing. Why doesn't everyone use this?

... So that night I went online and searched to find out what I had been taking. Apparently, its a drug that, while popular many, many decades ago as a painkiller, it "has been banned in most industrialized societies for its links to renal failure" and other adverse effects.

The one thing I can say is that it does make my heart race for a long time. Sometimes going to sleep at night is a bit tough, even ten or so hours after taking them.

So, any advice? I guess I have a few options. One, keep taking them, but only when I feel its needed (I have to be able to focus for work or the pain is really intense). Two, go back to the medicine shop and try the Chinese medicine she recommended. And three, just ride it out the way I did the last two times.

TL;DR version, I'm taking a crazy, banned-in-the-West Chinese drug that seems to stop cluster headaches but may have adverse short and long term effects.

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Could be just the caffeine helping, but too much in the tablet.  You may get the same effects from a five-hour energy drink, but for five hours, or guzzle a 16oz Red Bull.  Red Bull was first marketed in Thailand for truck drivers under the name Krating Daeng, it should be in nearby China, too.

If you're desperate to try anything, try oxygen if you can get it there, you could make it through another month.




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Painkillers are usually not effective with clusters, that part may not be even needed.   

You didn't mention, what is the name of the drug?

You might be talking about Ergotamine, i use them right before i feel an attack and usually they do the trick, however it has vasoconstriction capabilities that affect other organs, but  im willing to take the risk

Nevres wrote on Oct 30^th, 2012 at 7:28pm:



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This description would not fit ergotamine. 

It does aminopyrine. 




This condition hurts, I don't know what to say.  

Espresso coffee?

How's the mushrooms in China?   

Hey there PipForver

Which part of China are you in? That's one of the good/bad things about China... you can almost any kind of medicine without a prescription from a dodgy pharmacist.

Looks like you've found something that works. I don't know if the risk of acute renal failure is preferable to CH though (many clusterheads would probably say 'yes'). Do they not sell sumatriptan there?

You could also try melatonin or the vitamin D regimen posted about on these boards. Batch and many, many others have been having great success with the vitamins, and they are all common ones so hopefully easy to get in China. And hell yeah, I'd be taking up their offer of the Chinese medicine as well. Might not work, but then again, it might!

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She also says that life is like a box of chocolates.

That's a nasty little drug. There's a reason it isn't used in the US. I would opt in favor of other antiinflammatory drugs (asprin comes to mind) before hitting that stuff. Good luck, and blessings. lance