Having read on this site for years, you know that self-diagnosis and self-treatment are both a waste of your pain and may result in missing a condition which is more serious than Cluster.

So, what medical care have you received? What diagnoses have you received? What treatments have
doc(s) prescribed? With what results?

IF pain does, literally goes on for days without stopping, this suggests that you don't have Cluster.
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LOCATING HEADACHE SPECIALIST

1. Yellow Pages phone book: look for "Headache Clinics" in the M.D. section and look under "neurologist" where some docs will list speciality areas of practice.

2.  Call your hospital/medical center. They often have an office to assist in finding a physician. You may have to ask for the social worker/patient advocate.

3. Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or ; On-line screen to find a physician.

4. Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or Look for "Physician Finder" search box. They will send a list of M.D.s for your state.I suggest using this source for several reasons: first, we have read several messages from people who, even seeing neurologists, are unhappy with the quality of care and ATTITUDES they have encountered; second, the clinical director of the Jefferson (Philadelphia) Headache Clinic said, in late 1999, that upwards of 40%+ of U.S. doctors have poor training in treating headache and/or hold attitudes about headache ("hysterical female disorder") which block them from sympathetic and effective work with the patient; third, it's necessary to find a doctor who has experience, skill, and a set of attitudes which give hope of success. This is the best method I know of to find such a physician.

5. Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or NEW certification program for "Headache Medicine" by the United Council for Neurologic Subspecialties, an independent, non-profit, professional medical organization.
        Since this is a new program, the initial listing is limited and so it should be checked each time you have an interest in locating a headache doctor.

Headaches are a pretty complex area of medicine with many, many headache types and there are other non-headache causes that can result in symptoms of headaches. So it is essential to work with a good, experienced headache specialist.

It is possible that you've got more than one headache type which is creating a confusing mixture of symptoms. It isn't too unusual with quite a few people here having multiple types with the combination of migraine and CH being the more common (I get both).

It is possible that whilst you've tried multiple different drugs that you've not had a high enough dose for the medication to be effective. For verapamil most doctors are unlikely to give someone more than 240mg a day for its main use in controlling blood pressure, but for CH that is a very low dose with 360-480mg a day being normal and some people going to over 1000mg a day. So it is common to see where people have said they have tried everything to find that the optimum use of the medication hasn't been followed.

Another possibility with "everything" not working is that the pain isn't from CH but something else.

Or it could be you're one of the people for whom most of the standard drugs don't work too well.

So do follow up with an experienced headache specialist to get the diagnosis confirmed. Hopefully this will result in better treatment that works for you so you don't have to go through all the pain.

Welcome Valerie. What Mike said above is also true of O2. So many "have tried oxygen" meaning they have used too low a flow rate with the wrong type of mask. But to answer your question directly, I use O2 (up to 60lpm with a demand flow valve and nonrebreather mask) preceded by a double Monster chugged as quickly as I can. This reduces the abort time for pretty much every cluster attack to less than 5 minutes. Blessings. lance