Posted by Kim (64.219.45.27) on December 25, 2001 at 20:09:42:
Hi, my name is Kim and I have been reading your message board as well as a lot of info about cluster headaches. Of course, I think that I could possibly be having them. In fact, I was sure that's what they were until I read the message from Kyle that his was only about 10-20 seconds long and several of you didn't think they were clusters. My situation is similar to Kyle's. If I could, I would like to tell you about it and see what you think. My first experience with this terrible pain was the day after Thanksgiving this year. The pain was on the right side of my head about the area of my temple and I have never in my life felt pain as I did then. I have had two children without an epidural and would have much rather gone thru that 10 times over than to have felt such pain. Anyways, the pain only lasted about 10-20 seconds and then it was about 10-15 minutes before the next hit again which only last about 10-20 seconds. Before the night was over I had had three of these attacks. I called the ER and they told me to take a tylenol and go to bed. I did take a tylenol PM, went to bed and never had another one, until 2 days ago. On December 23rd, I began having these same attacks however this time they were much stronger, harder, and lasted about 2 minutes. I had 5 attacks this day and I absolutely would have rather died. After the 5th attack, I begged my husband to take me to the ER. Before going to the ER I did take 2 advil. When I got to the ER it was going to be a 3 hour wait and while sitting there I never had another one. They eventually did a blood work up and took my blood pressure and everything was normal. I am a very healthy person unless I'm having one of these attacks. Anyways, I didn't have one at all on the Dec 24th and then today I had two very small ones. In fact, it was like one was going to start and then then within seconds went away and except for the initial start of it, it didn't hurt. I'm confused. My family wants me to have a cat scan and MRI and I am probably the worst patient because I just don't feel sick and feel like an idiot going to the doctor when nothing is wrong with me at the time.
What do you think? Did anyone's start this way? Could this be just the beginning for me? Does anything I've described sound like it could be clusters? Thanks for helping.---Kim