Re-starting smoking was a killer trigger


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Posted by John R on September 28, 1998 at 11:02:10:

Since most cluster patients smoke I tried quitting a few times to see if that would have any effect. I am a chronic sufferer and if I'm not on some preventative medicine, then I get at least one CH each night. Anyway, quitting smoking didn't help stop the CH's, but when I started back up after having not smoked for a month or two, I had the worst (longest headaches, most intense pain, most difficult to stop) break-through of headaches in my life.

I read an article a few years back by a political writer that used to get clusters and whose nuerologist told him would go away about 5 years after he quit smoking. Whether it was the power of suggestion or the Chinese accupunturist (a Chinese lady in the Washington, DC area) that he went to about 5 years after he had quit smoking, something worked and that was when his stopped.

Anyway, I have heard of CH sufferers who kept getting them long after they quit, does anyone know of anyone else whose headaches stopped years after they quit? We're only likely to have the ones that quitting didn't help read this, but I'd like any comments at all regarding smoking as a trigger, not smoking as a help. I would never recommend trying to quit smoking when you're having clusters, it's just too hard. I know when I did smoke, I needed a cigarette to wind down after a headache had passed.

So I finally quit smoking a pack or more a day 2/96. I kept cheating on and off with as many as five or six cigarettes a day till about 10/97 when I finally stopped completely and haven't had even a puff since. So if the five-year thing has any merit, I guess I have four years to go. I know some sufferers never smoked, so I know this isn't the complete answer for everyone, but I sure hope it works for me... Here's to no more headaches after the year 2002. I've had them since about 1986 and I'm 38 yrs old now.


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