Hi Tom,
I have chronic paroxysmal hemicrania. I do not have attacks all the time but in recurrent blocks of 2-3 days. When it's active, I can easily do +20 attacks a day. Average attack duration is 10 minutes. I have also migraine and such an attack series always start with a light migraine that then escalates. 100 mg indomethacin stops it completely, I mean the hemicrania attacks... the migraine is not affected by that and just continue. For migraine, I use oxygen which -very atypical- abort nearly all my attacks. Oxygen and indomethacin make me now nearly 100 % painfree.
what doses of indocin do you take ? I had no effect on 75 mg, 150 was much better but I did 3 x 50. I changed that to start with 100 and then 50 8 hours later and that worked much better ! So I would advise you to experiment a bit with how you divide the doses. I have no side-effects from indocin and it cancels the attacks completely; which should normally be the expected result if you have CPH.
You can try oxygen but I can tell you for CPH, it will make the headache a bit more bearable but don't expect a miracle. And anyway, attacks only take 10 min so until you opened your bottle and start breathing; the attack is already over. When I have CPH attacks I never use oxygen.
Something that often can work for CPH is topiramate. Maybe you can ask to give that a try. But really, this ugly indocin should be your friend. Previous month, I had one occasion where I felt a new series was coming but I did not take my 100 mg indocin on time... well, a few hours later I ended up in the ICU begging they would do whatever to stop the pain !
siegfried