Posted by David Chalfant (208.30.14.64) on July 12, 1999 at 23:13:22:
In Reply to: Feedback needed for My Story posted by Jeff on July 12, 1999 at 21:33:09:
Welcome to CH.com You will find the answers to your questions among these pages and the Message Board. It takes a while to absorb the archives but you will find it to be worth while. Cluster headaches cosistantly effect one side of the head only. Mine is the right side. my right eye swells a bit, tears and become bloodshot My right nostril gets stuffy and some time run. CH's are very often misdiagnosed with strong allergies,deviated septum as being the cause. So concerning Ch,s , sounds like you got them. Can't give you an answer to the abnormal CT. THAT could be another matter and I plead ignorance of CT's . Some people have spent lots of $ on sinus surgery, scraping, and many other imaging tests only to find that they had been suffering from cluster headaches all the time.
Itry not to " play doctor " but your treatment is similiar to mine. I had to drop a few meds that I did not need but I currently take 360mgs of verapamil sr twice daily. 100 mgs of elavil-a trycylic antidepressant. I have been diagnosed with clical depression/anxiety disorder(Long family history of these). I take Effexor XR for my other disorders.
I started out with 180 mgs of verapamil after two weeks, my doc doubled the dosage; 1 AM pill one PM pill. Primarily I think the Verapamil is the primary drug with some help with elavil. In the past elavil alone did not work. The Efexor; I have no idea if it is playing a part in relief of Ch's , but it does with depression. For me I had to find a doctor that would work with me and LISTEN to what I wanted to try. He suffers CH,s also and I follow his advice but he lets me make the call if his advice is wrong. One other important issue: I am glad I did not give up on the verapamil because I believe that a difference of 180mgs and the willingness of my doctor to double the dosage. In 1993 it made the difference between absolute hell and almost totally pain free
Hope you stick around
Pain free days DC