Posted by Hal (206.15.143.114) on September 29, 1999 at 14:22:49:
In Reply to: Memory Loss, Denial and Clusters posted by Bill McCuistion on September 29, 1999 at 03:20:04:
It wasn’t until 1986 that I finally remembered that I had been having episodic attacks since 1956. Between episodes, I blocked out the memory that those horrors had happened before, probably because, before 1986, I couldn’t get any useful medical help of any kind (“It’s an allergy, sinusitis, just one of those things,” whatever). So, I simply “forgot” about the clusters, if I wasn’t actually having an episode. Like, what would have been the point of remembering? There was nothing to be done about it. It’s not like you once got hit by a car and now you remember to look both ways before crossing the street.
In 1986, I finally found a doctor who could give me the correct diagnosis, even though he was never able to find anything that would stop the attacks. That didn’t happen until this year, when a different doctor suggested Verapamil and a third doctor increased the dosage till it was high enough to work.
I think that another part of this “forgetting” is the fact that the pain is so incredibly excruciating that it’s hard to make yourself believe that something so terrible is ever going to happen to you again or even that it has ever happened to you before.
To any chronics who may happen to read this: I take my hat off to you. You have to be among the strongest-spirited people on the face of the earth.