You can just be sitting there, reading a book or relaxing, as I was a bit ago.

Without warning, a sensation flows from the top of your head to your heart. It is as if someone has just poured ice cold water into your body, but it doesn't feel cold. Rather the sensation of a negative energy source flowing through you and downward, between the blood vessels, around the brain, over the eyes and into the neck and chest. A heart stopping, sinking feeling.

Instantly, your body reacts. The heart starts to race, nerves stand on end as all fight or flight reflexes kick in, but honestly, where are you going to run to?

Your mind races. Was it just a pulse? Is it a shadow, come to say hello? Or, am I a breath away from agony?

When I get these sensations, I picture a mighty sledge hammer, perhaps Thor's legendary Hammer, smashing a walnut. Only it's not a walnut. It's my head, and Thor's Hammer is a cluster headache.

Then the worst thing possible happens.

Pain.

Pure, unadulterated, straight from the source; pain. It's not like putting your finger into a power socket in your home. No, not like that AT ALL. It is like throwing your whole body onto a power generator, and getting it raw, 100%, right from the source. That is how the pain of a cluster differs from other forms of pain. And trust me, I know.

The pain consumes your thoughts. It shakes you, it rocks you to the core. It starts like a punch in the eye, before a red hot poker is jammed into the socket, right between the eye and forehead.

Time no longer exists. How long have I been slamming my fist into my skull? Is there anything harder? That book? A bat? Anything to distract me from the THIS pain.

Now someone has attached a drill to the red hot poker. It is spinning, ripping, tearing at my flesh, piercing my mind. My nose is running, my eye streaming and drooping, but I'm not crying. Not yet. It hurts to much to cry. Besides, the time for crying is later.

Then the pounding. Pulsating. Hammering on my forehead and temple. I can see the demon in my mind's eye, the beast that terrorises my life. It is dancing its way from my eye socket to my temple, laughing and singing as it goes. Its feet leaving swirling burn marks in my brain.

I gasp for breath. I walk, I pace, I toss and turn, I bang my head on the wall.

The demon merely laughs.

People in the world could have been born, grown old and died for all I know once the pain finally subsides. It takes a moment to find myself again. To remember where I am, what day it is, and if I really care.

All I know is that it's over. The pain has left virtually as quickly as it came. And I feel a massive vacuum has taken its place. A void sucking all sensation back into place. An emptiness and relief nearly as intense as the pain.

Then the tears come. In great waves they come. My body shakes, my thoughts turn into a bizarre mixture of panic and relief. Fear and anger. I can honestly say, I long for death.

Eventually, my body quiets. My mind calms. And I begin to wonder, when will the next attack come? 5 minutes? An hour? A day. A week? How long do I get to enjoy sanity for, this time.

MG

Well said, MG.

I have trouble with dreading that the pain is going to become debilitating within about five minutes and I can't stop it because I am in a wrong place when it happens. Sure I have meds at home, and at work, and I carry Imitrex injections with me at all times.

But what to do when I am speeding along 70 mph on a California freeway and get hit, and I have 6 miles to go, and there is no exit to pull off for 6 miles? Today I managed to get off the freeway without killing myself or anybody else, pulled up in front of a Chase Bank and gave myself a shot in their parking lot.