First time I've posted here, any other CH board for that matter. Wrote four or five paragraphs before the following ones but after hitting preview lost them. The long and short of it: I'm a mid-fifties professor in Madison, CH sufferer since age 19, like so many others my life choices and direction have been shaped by it more than anything else. Non-smoker, non-drinker, no genetic predisposition even to migraine, just lucky. The pattern for many years was twice yearly, two to three months apiece, six to eight attacks daily, each lasting a little over an hour and a half if left untouched. Then an unwelcome break in the pattern, a twelve month bout in '93-'94, following which something as welcome as it was unexpected: ten CH free years. I began to hope that the gods had decided I wasn't any fun anymore; but wherever they went they must have gotten bored by 2005, when a nasty six month bout kicked in. This was my first bout in the online era and I was amazed at how much had been learned in those ten years. Imitrex and the new oxygen masks were great, as was the news that real science was beginning to replace the field's long alternation between medieval dogmatism and dangerous and spurious fads. But the bout brought home that I'm getting too old (though otherwise in excellent health) for the meds they give you. The only thing that works, that has ever worked well, is Imitrex, but of course it can cover a small fraction of the six or more attacks I typically get daily. Oxygen works, but I have to be tethered to it as it seems to postpone rather than knock out individual attacks. The overall life effects last time were pretty discouraging: I had to be relieved of my classes, the thing I really life for, and landed in the hospital for eight days, two in intensive care (infection disguised by prednisone, took me right to the edge). I was on the verge of complete despair when one bright day the proverbial angel appeared out of nowhere, waved her clusterbusters wand, and stopped the cycle cold. To this skeptical academic one experience is likely coincidence or magic; but with a second, today, I'm starting to see a trend.
  CH-free since early 2006, last Sunday, a week ago, the unmistakable shadows appeared. I contacted my primary care doctor's office first thing Monday, but this being Christmas week can't expect oxygen or the usual meds until next Monday. He's a great doc, have had him for years, trust him entirely, just bad timing. And even if it hadn't been this week, I'd be in for a long and isolated siege, really can't do this again.
   Unfortunately, I've never had a regular neurologist or pain clinic for reasons that will be familiar to many of you ( if you were wondering it happens even to late middle age professors with perfectly fine insurance). Do all the gatekeepers - receptionists and nurses - take "cluster headache patient" as meaning "pestilential attention-demanding probable drug addict"? Believe me, I've tried everything, the only thing to show for it a few - a very few -apologies months too late to mean anything.
    Anyway, enough of that. Got whacked and hard on Christmas eve day, Christmas itself I wouldn't be able to describe. After my last bout I dumped all meds as usual, but after a sleepless night a memory from God-knows-where told me to look into some camping equipment from the summer after. Found something really tiny, and now four years old; expected nothing, barely felt any effects, and for the last ten hours now have been completely pain free. Could this last?
  So just a stab in the dark, I don't even know what questions to ask. Do CH sufferers even have support groups? How do people balance their own and others' privacy with the need to discuss things in the open? It was such a relief last time to see these online communities springing up, seems about time that I started to ask for help.
  I'd be most grateful for any advice.