One piece of advice that anyone on this board will give you... if your neuro won't listen to you - FIRE HIM/HER and find one that will.

Most of us have gone thru several neuro's before we found one we could work with. YOU have to be your own advocate and know as much as you can about CH BEFORE you go to a neuro. DO NOT be afraid to ask questions or QUESTION the neuro (how many CH patients have you treated? - if he won't answer you - walk OUT!). And if he won't listen or doesn't know anything about CH - then you're wasting your time and money going to him/her.

I have a wonderful neuro. At each visit his first question is "What's new in clusters?" He treats over 50 CH patients and gives them this website and recommends that they come here. He also visits here when he has the time. Right now he's doing a happy dance about the D3 and what it's doing for me. He's put other CH patients on it.

BUT I went thru a whole lot of neuro's before I found him about 20 years ago.

So know you're not alone and any advice we give here is from experience and meant in the best possible way. 

Neck problems are often a trigger for CH. There can be numerous reason why this happens, the obvious ones being a) blood supply to the head goes through the neck and b) parasympathetic nerves in the neck that are connected to the hypothalamus.

As for moyamoya - a recent study found a connection to CH
Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

Of course that Moya Moya article is our own DJ.  And it is not a study.  It is simply an article saying his ch quit after being operated on for MoyaMoya.

hell@back wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2014 at 7:27am:


That sounds about half familiar.. Had about the same thing happen and it turned out to be a pinched nerve in the C-(something) (MRI showed it). Anyhow neuro sent me to a pain management neuro and he did a couple of procedures and shot something in my neck to shrink the nerve (or something) and then did something else (more shots) in his office and my neck got lots better.

Surgery was the LAST option and the injections worked well, so you might ask about that. It was some kind of steroid. They have to put you to sleep to do it and it sometimes takes three tries before it takes, but it's worth asking about before you go for the surgery.. 

I did get the epidural steroid injection, problem was the dr hit a nerve pulling out the needle and it didn't take, but im ready to try again, surgery scares me more.
It seems like after going over the bells palsy that in my case my neck just cramped up bad and probably caused the bells palsy to happen.
Im guessing I had something pinched triggering the cluster headaches and when my neck popped it released it and that lead to the headaches stopping, for now anyway.
Thanks for the help everyone.   Willis.

sorry heres pic

When I get cluster headache sometimes on side of my face droops I can't speak its as if my face is paralysed is that what bells palsy is? If yes I do get that.