ruthlian

I don't have a lot of answers, but I do have a 4 year old daughter and I totally understand that feeling of not being enough of yourself to be a good parent. I had a CH attack come on while setting up to make slime with her and it broke my heart to send her to go watch tv instead while I endured...it felt like I was literally watching my life be stolen from me. I bought RC seeds on tranceplants.net a couple weeks ago - they haven't shipped yet it looks like but it wasn't very expensive so I felt ok about it as an experiment.

Welcome! Cluster headaches seem to be more rare in young women, so I'm not glad that you're here exactly but I'm glad we aren't alone! I had my first at 20 and am 36 now. I have not tried as many of the medications you mention - my last doctor prescribed me sumatriptan in tablet form which didn't do anything for me except propel me into a medication overuse cluster episode. I will say that 5 hr energy is a great abortive for me, and that I have had a lot of success with a procedure called Sphenocath, which is an SPG nerve block where they put a lidocaine solution on a nerve cluster in your head. I had it done in 2019 and didn't have another episode until this year. I did it again this week and am down to just shadow pain, I think I'll probably go back for another one in a couple weeks to see. The Sphenocath is a lot more commonly used for regular migraines, the doctor who did mine said it's really 50/50 with cluster patients, but as we know here just about anything is worth a shot. Good luck!

Oh wow, we really did get lucky for 2020, didn't we?! I'm sorry for both us! But you're right, we'll get through it! I hope you have some rest and some coping methods!

In the total crap hole that was 2020, I didn't have ANY cluster episodes. On Thanksgiving, I felt some onset/shadow and aborted with a 5 hr energy. Then at 12:15am on January 1st, I was woken up (yes, because I was already in bed ) by a full ch attack and am now up to at least 12 for this year. I definitely slacked on my vitamin regimen sooo I've got that going again. Plus a dr appointment scheduled where I demand O2. I did the sphenocath SPG block procedure in the summer of 2019 and I think that is a lot of why I had a good run so I made a phone call about doing that again and am waiting to hear back. Looking up ordering rc seeds. Basically not resting on my laurels this time! Last night when it woke me up (the midnight trend has continued), I reallllllly didn't want to go through my whole thing so I took a 5hr energy, hoping that since I had already taken some melatonin it would balance out. It did not So today hasn't been a very fun day (Also had another attack wake me up from the 2 hrs of sleep I did get after that) Does anybody else have an acupressure mat? That provides me some relief as a new step in my ice pack-hot shower dance. Also alternate nostril breathing if my nose isn't too stuffy. Oh the upside of being up all night is that my cats cuddled me and I finished "The Way of Kings" by Brandon Sanderson. Anyway, hope you all are doing as well as possible and thanks for having me back!

@Snazzy93Mine definitely start in my neck! I'm so glad this thread got bumped because my cluster headaches affect my right side in my neck and behind my eye, and I also have a right shoulder/neck injury, so it has taken a lot of vigilance to be able to tell if it's my injury acting up or a headache coming on. My most recent and worse cluster actually started recently when I received acupuncture to help with my shoulder injury - I got two cluster headaches that day and then at least one every day for 2 weeks. But my shoulder injury felt better :-p I have often wondered if the inflammation in that quadrant of my body is related, or how they might be affecting each other.