Posted by Hal (206.15.143.92) on December 11, 1999 at 16:20:34:
In Reply to: palate bumps - quite common in CH - good warning sign posted by gary on December 11, 1999 at 14:09:16:
Gary, I was glad to read that. Since I first found this board, back in February, I’ve been trying to get my mind around the concept of the cluster “shadow.” I’d really been feeling stupid, because everybody seemed to know and understand what was meant but me. For one to three months before The Demon decides to get serious about kicking my ass, I get peculiar aches in my eye or my cheek or in my teeth. The pain starts out barely noticeable, but it has a very strange feel, completely different from the various “ordinary” kinds of pain. When I feel these peculiar pains, which I had been thinking of as “miniclusters,” I know that I’m going into a cycle. The pain slowly gets worse and worse, but still not particularly bad, compared to a full-blown cluster, at least, until, finally, The Demon completes his warm-up exercises and decides that it’s showtime.
I consider myself to be luckier than a lot of other people on the board, though. The Beast doesn’t do any cool-down exercises. When a cycle of mine is over, it’s over as though it never was, with no shadows on that end. And it’s the same way during a cycle: either I’m in unspeakable agony or I’m not. It just amazes me how I can be in so much pain for so long, yet my eye, my cheek, and my teeth are not even the least bit sore, afterwards. There’s no residual pain whatsoever between attacks. And, because it works that way for me, I’m one of the people that enjoy the only benefit that accrues to clusterheads that I’ve ever heard of: the endorphin high.