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When I first heard about the burn pit exposure thing, I definitely considered the possibility they were linked. Did 3 tours in Iraq and definitely visited the burn pits a few times. Was in Iraq 2004-2007, and clusters didn't really start until around 2014/2015 I believe (wasn't really sure what they were the first few years, so didn't log it well). Nothing really to add to the discussion except to say that I'm another possible number if that were to be something tabulated.

I find that in my case, playing the mental game right becomes the most important thing as episodes grind on. Particularly at night. I don't know how chronic people do this. I steal a lot from zen teachers and competitors in precision sports for mindset, and play small attention games if I can manage it. Music with polyrhythms is a useful one, but I was a drummer as a kid and trying to tap along is familiar (and more importantly, each song I can make it through kills a few minutes). Anything to focus on is better than sitting there and taking a beating. Because you're right, that's when you start to ruminate. I try to keep my mind on a very short leash and frame getting through it as just another distasteful and necessary job.

It is lonely at the top. That is why we have this place.

A few weeks ago I started a new YouTube channel (and TikTok) all about Headaches, Migraines and Cluster Headaches. YouTube Channel: Another Headache TikTok: @Another.Headache For the last 16 years, I have averaged 400 headaches, migraines and clusters a year. I'm a chronic clusterhead, and this forum quite literally saved my life. I had 257 cluster attacks in 2011 and was at the end of my rope. I joined Cluster Busters, made friends and figured out how to reduce them to a very manageable level. I'm technically diagnosed with Chronic Daily Headaches, Chronic Migraines and Chronic Cluster Headaches. I figured that as I had SO MUCH experience dealing with various types of headaches, and there didn't seem to be any other channel out there churning out videos, that maybe I should start one. Here is my latest video about my story and an introduction to the subject of cluster headaches. I would love it if you'd check out the videos, subscribe, share, like, yada, yada. But also, I'd love your feedback and ideas on subjects to cover. I have a list of 20-30 videos and topics I want to cover in the coming weeks and months, and am going to do several deep dives specifically on Cluster Headaches and Migraines. All constructive feedback is welcome. I also have a Patreon page, but haven't started promoting it too much yet, will do in the coming weeks. I wanted to get some good content out there before I started asking for support. Anyway, let me know what you think. xx Mox

I was two miles away. (Just someone who lived in NYC. Not 1st responder or anything.) The non-stop smell, the feeling of the smell coating your tongue, the thickness of the air… there isn’t a vocabulary for this… just no words… bleak adjectives like nightmarish and horrific miss the mark the way describing an elephant as grey does— there is no scope, no dimension, to capture what it was actually like. To think that the smell/taste/sadness/despair of that day/week that is still so visceral, could be connected to the life-ruining, non-stop, soul-crushing, relentless pain that I feel like I can’t endure another second, this pain that makes me want to rip my own eyeball out the way Van Gogh dispensed with his cursed ear, to think this pain could be directly connected to that 9/11 pain… I just don’t know what to say… I’m crying right now, but I am not sure if it is the thought of the connection between these two, or the fact that I ran out of o2 last night and I’ve been pounding my head against the shower wall for the last 12 hours.