Posted by Jack on November 09, 2001 at 16:15:54:
Hi, My name is Jack and I am 56. I took the test and scored 16 out of 16 a few months back. I do not have a long history with CH, but thought I could tell my story and get some suggestions and feedback. I am sorry if this is kind of long, but I really would appreciate some help.
About 3 1/2 years ago I got my 1st CH and the doctors thought it was sinus problems until they did a scan. I had gone to a dentist prior to that. I was referred to a neuro DR that said right away that I had CHs.
Mine always seem to be preceded by my upper back left molar tooth hurting. The neuro did not want to give me immitrex (sic) as I had a heart attack about 11 years ago. I think I used some percocet, but it took forever to work. The CH were in the 9 and 10 range usually once a day in the late evening. After two months they went away. Some days I seemed to have a less severe CH, but they made my head feal bad for several hours. The pain is always on the left side, and sometimes my nose does get plugged and usually the left nostril.
I had not thought much about CH for a long time. Near the end of July of this year my tooth stated hurting again and I had this flashback and thought Oh oh. They started again. At 1st I could take advil to stave them off, but eventually I used anything in the medicine cabinet that said it stopped pain. My neuro gave me some small pills that that started at 25mg and you were supposed to build up to 300 or 400 mg a day. I dont recall what they were, but I saw them on your website and they had a very low effective rate.
The pain was not quite as severe this time, but I did have some pretty bad episodes. A few times I used an Actiq sucker when I had a real bad CH. Is that something people have tried here? Reading the label on the sucker was a little scary and was not something I wanted to use very often. They did stop the pain in about 10 minutes. They are real expensive also. Almost to the day in September they stopped again in two months. I thought that was great and hoped they would never come back, or at least it would be another 3 1/2 years.
A couple of days ago my tooth started bothering me again, and I feel like they are starting again. Am I in for 2 more months, or have I gone to a chronic level of some sort? Is this unusual? Was I just damn lucky that it had beeen so long since the 1st episode? Do they start off at a low level for other people and then get worse and worse?
I know that many of you that read this have suffered with these for a long time. Maybe yours are more severe and more frequent. I really can feel your pain in more ways than one. I thank you for any suggestions you could give to a newbie.
Jack