Cluster, migraine and tension headache support

It all started about two weeks before Christmas. I started feeling that little burning sensation in my head and felt a little more foggy than usual in the morning. I suspected that the demon was only a few days away from revealing itself.

True to form, it only took a couple of days. I started feeling some mild cluster symptoms… stabbing pain on my left side, racing heart, heavy eyelid, sore carotid, and sore at the base of my neck. They were only lasting about 20 minutes and were very mild (pretty typical for the first stage of my cluster cycle).

As luck would have it, I had a follow-up visit from my recent physical scheduled, so it worked out quite well to also discuss treatment options with my doctor. (This was a new doctor for me, and I never really know how each doctor will react to cluster headache treatment… I’ve had good ones and bad ones.)

This doctor was very understanding and wanted to move fast and be aggressive with treatment. So we tried an 11 day prednisone treatment. Immediately the headaches stopped. Not one more while I was taking the steroid. This was great, since I was expecting only limited relief and was trying to mentally prepare myself for a month or two of pure hell. I had tried predinsone only once before and it worked quite well then too. Anyway, after coming off the prednisone, I started getting a few mild symptoms again. I was prepared, and had a prescription of verapamil on hand. Started taking one at bedtime (120mg extended release). Worked like a charm.

After a few weeks of verapamil, I stopped noticing the “shadows” that I feel when the clusters are suppressed by medication, and decided to quit taking it. So far so good!

Moral of the story, you can bet next time I will be requesting the prednisone treatment for my cluster headache. God willing it will work as well next go-around. Verapamil is always a standby and will continue to use that to supplement whatever prophylactic treatment I try in the future.
That’s it. Good news this time. Hope to not have to report back any time soon.

Feel free to add any thoughts or comments on what works or doesn’t work for you. I’m always curious how other people deal with these things.

Well, I need to get officially diagnosed I suppose, but it seems I have carotidynia. My carotid artery on my right side has been very tender to the touch downright painful to the touch for about three days now. I have had this before, and thought it related to my cluster cycle, but I don’t remember when it arrived or how long it lasted last time. Since I just came out of a medically-mild cluster cycle, I can only assume it’s related somehow.

Here’s a fairly good definition, since I had never heard of it until recently:

Carotidyna can be defined as the neck, face, ear and head pain. The pain is continuous, dull and throbbing and it is felt over the carotid bifurcation (on the temple), the pain may stretch to the ipsiliteral mandible, eye, ear and cheek.

We’ll see how it goes. I have a Dr. appt. for my thyriod in a few weeks, so unless it gets worse, I’m waiting until then.

UPDATE: Well, I read yesterday that magnesium supplements may help, so I started taking those. I also began taking some kudzu root that I have tried using for my cluster headaches. I do feel like the pain and swelling are reduced a fair amount today, though I don’t know if it’s one of these supplements or just time. I’ll have to experiment next time to see which helps. But, you know, when you’re in pain, you really don’t want to take the time to go through the scientific method to find a solution — you just want things to get better now.

I imagine there will be at least one person out there who asks… why in the world do you want to write about headaches? So here goes.

I’m a headache sufferer of many varieties. From age 11 to about age 33 I had frequent migraines that send me home early to barf and sleep my day away — those have subsided now for the most part, though I do still get a couple mild migraines per year. As luck would have it, at 27 I started getting cluster headaches which have been a real challenge to manage and cope with (though at least they are not chronic like some poor souls). And, just to round things off, I often get tension headaches that slow me down and keep me from the things that are important.

Adding insult to injury, it now appears that I am starting to get carotidynia (pain and swelling of the carotid) which may be linked to migraine and cluster headache sufferers. Lucky me.

In short, I decided I needed to start putting together information, links, help, ideas, thoughts… and just my rants when I’m not feeling well in an effort to both help me with my struggle, and perhaps offer some help for folks like me (is that you?) who suffer with headaches too. I can’t tell you how helpful it has been to just read that there are people out there like me who know how much it sucks to be debilitated by headaches.

So, I’m going to get working on this site in my spare time… in hopes that you may benefit. Maybe together we can pull each other out of the gutter once in a while.

God’s blessings.