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Small suggestion here. You currently have a non-rebreather mask with a bag that does not support your breathing. You can take an unscented fresh garbage bag and use that instead of that little thing giving you a hard time. Tie up the open end tightly. As in air won't leak tight. Now, cut a hole in a corner where you are going to either push the stub of the previous bag or the bag with the bottom cut out. Remove or open the bottom of the bag on your mask and insert what is still attached into the garbage bag. Tape that up really well. Now you have a really big bag to hold your O2! Then you will have the pleasure of plenty of O2 for your next breath waiting for you - not you waiting for it. Not the best rig, but beats out running your O2. Turn on your O2 and grab a few slurps of that caffeine while it gets up to speed. Less than a minute and you are on it. That should get you through until your cluster mask gets there. Personally, if I can't get the high flow needed, it is a waste of money to use it. Takes a looong time to get relief and the relief is not lasting at all. Like executing a bat turn in the living room and heading back to the office cause it is back not lasting. When doing your post hit breathing, dial the O2 back to match your breathing. You should be breathing at a normal rate at that time, so you won't likely need 15 or 25lpm. And no grease or oil or anything on the threads of anything where you are pumping O2. THMH gave you a great primer on that one. One more item. Try holding a full inhale of O2 for 10-20 seconds. It really does help. Then exhale with that crunch. Works great. As your pain levels drop, you can relax a bit on your breathing technique. By the end, you should be breathing normally.

CHMom, I Second CHFathers post. I believe all home concentrators max out at 8 liters per minute (which is pretty useless for most of us). For most people 15 LPM is the minimum to abort and 25 works best. The only way to get high flow is to use O2 tanks. I find using 25 LPM for the first 10 mins or so till the ramp up in pain sorta levels off. Then I cut it down to 15 LPM till the pain stops. Then I drop it to 10 LPM and breathe normally for 5 to 10 minutes post attack. The extra time at the end of the attack reduces the likelihood that I get another attack back to back. PFW, J

Concentrator is not good. The O2 it creates contains too much room air; the liters per minute settings usually do not go high enough; and they're often noisy, which is one more thing you don't need during an attack. Your neurologist should not really be prescribing the delivery method. I'm concerned that s/he will also prescribe cannula instead of a non-rebreather mask (or fail to specify a non-rebreather mask). (When the supplier sees a concentrator prescribed, they are likely to think unless the prescription specifies it that you are a typical COPD-type patient, and they're likely to give you cannula instead of a non-rebreather mask.) The prescription should read something like: "Oxygen therapy for cluster headache: 15-20 minutes at 15lpm using non-rebreather mask." If you can get a prescription for 25 lpm, all the better. The oxygen provider should -- but just as likely won't -- know what equipment is appropriate for CH. You might have to educate them. What you want is at least one large tank (an M or H tank) for home and at least one smaller tank (E tank) for portability (car/office). Some people get by with a concentrator, at least in the early days of their CH, but it won't match the aborts you get with a cylinder.