FunTimes

Thank you both for your feedback! I currently take 720mg total Verapamil daily and would love to stop with the Motrin but I think it is a mental thing that I just need to overcome. I had my blood pressure tested and was told I can not up the Verapamil at this time. I am a big coffee drinker and at one point cut it out of my daily ritual all together thinking it may decrease the amount of headaches I get in a day, but that did not help at all. I will try the 5 hour energy trick to see if that helps at all. I have given up drinking alcohol all together as that seems to be a trigger for me. I have read about the busting techniques here on this site and am interested in trying them all. I have printed out the D3 regimen to read over and think I can do that when I am in the study. The next study I was getting into is the one on the home page here for the Psilocybin in Connecticut. It is only about a 3 and a half hour drive from my house outside of Philadelphia. I am open to try anything as the clusters are non stop and I don't think anything can make it much worse. I know that I can get a placebo but after a set amount of time they usually bring you back in for the real thing. The only reason I join the studies is to try to find a solution that may one day be something we can all legally do to help with our issue. I would rather not take the triptans as I feel they will cause other issues in the long run. I currently take it in pill form, i have had injections in the past and they do work fast. The injections that I had were a compressed air type that shoot the medication into your leg, I have had about 6 of them that did not work (failed to fire off the medication). The insurance that I have does not pay for anything until I meet a $6,000 deductible so I kind of shy away from getting them because they are about $200 a shot for me. The longest PF streak I have had in the last 4 years has been 5 days. the last 3 months have been hell with up to 5 hits a day. My family is very understanding and they do what they can to help me out. My wife must be a saint, she will stand by with a box of tissues, bags of ice, water bottles and a hand full of pills for me. I just do not know how to repay her. I can only treat her to so many steak dinners! My wife also found something about putting Frankincense oil on the roof of your mouth to about the attack. It does seem to help at times but have not seen that mentioned in anyone's bag of tricks yet. She just puts 2 drops on a small piece of paper towel or a tissue and puts it on my tongue then I hold it to the roof of my mouth for a minute and spit it back out. I do have better supplies coming in to get this oxygen set up the proper way and find it kind of odd that the doctors do not have a setup that fits our needs. I was in the hospital ER one night and I did not even get a aspirin to help me, so fed up with the lack of help I just got up and walked out only to get a bill from them for no help at all. All this crap is going on on top of dealing with every day life.. I just wanted to vent here a little as I know you all deal with the same if not worse. Thank you for responding and I will be sure to read on and on and on.

I have been dealing with Clusters for about 4 years now and have viewed this site several times over the years. I created a login this week to just release a little. I started out thinking I needed a root canal due to headaches and had that done with no relief. I was then sent to a different oral surgeon who knew I had cluster headaches as soon as I walked in the door of his office. I was then sent to a neurologist who seems to be on top of his game with the newest cutting edge treatments for clusters and he set me up with a clinical trial for a stimulation implant that went into my cheek. I have been in that study for a year and a half now and it does not seem to help me. I am on the verapamil 3x's a day, Motrin like candy when a hit comes on and sumatriptan to try to kill the pain. I have tried oxygen in the past with no luck. Ice packs and rolling around on the floor until the pain lets up. I broke my hand from hitting the floor during a bad night of headaches and did not know it till the next morning. After reading about the oxygen on this site over the last few weeks I decided to try it again. I picked up 3 tanks this past Monday and gave it a try 3 times the first day. I only got the crappy mask that came with the tanks and I could not get the high flow regulator but I figured that was better then nothing and I had the headache anyway so what the hell. It seemed to help on the first go around but knowing I needed the better mask and regulator I went on a hunt for the better tools. I ordered a regulator from amazon that will let me get the better flow rate and a recommended mask from another cluster site so I hope that with the correct setup I will have much better luck. I am not really sure why I am posting this because I know that many more people have it much worse off then I do. I only get 2 or 3 headaches a day and 2 out of the 3 only last about an hour average. I was just wondering how to manage family? I have a wife and 3 kids that also have to live with this, how do I not put the burden on them? They are great and jump at the chance to help me when I need it but I never thought something as small as a headaches could cause so much feeling of separation. I am signing up for another trial to see if that will help me out at all but first need the o2 to work because I can not take any triptan for 2 weeks before the study starts. Has anyone else tried any of the clinical trials with any good results? I figured I should try that route to help us all find some kind of treatment to better our lives. That is about all I have to say, Thank you for taking the time to listen to me ramble on a little.