mads

I am at the end of a 3 week cycle, so the attacks are shorter and more shadow like, but I had one that was lasting around 8 hours with no relief and read on here to try ginger. I made ginger tea and the pain finally started to let up! I have now had a cup of ginger tea right when I start to feel the pain come on, or tightness in my neck, which is an indicator for me, and for the past few days and attacks it has stopped the pain and the attack by the time I finish the cup of tea. Who knows how long it will last, or if it will continue to work for the lesser/shadow pains but every small bit of help to reduce or stop pain is worth it. I have been using the pure ginger tea from yogi tea. Hope this helps someone, even if just a little!

Glad to hear I am not alone in letting hot water pretty much burn my scalp and neck. I always end up in the shower, sitting under the water. At first I came to it as a way to simply cope and try to calm myself down from the pain, but it does seem to help break the attack, or at least get me through the most painful peak. I have never tried hot and cold water, I will try it. Usually I just use as hot of water as I can tolerate.

Hi thanks for bringing this topic up. When I first spoke to a dr about possibly having cluster headaches after my first two attacks he basically laughed when I said part of it was insane tightness in my neck/base of skull on the side of the attack. He even told me that it was not connected and that my neck was probably hurting from being on my phone/laptop too often. But to this day neck pain is my biggest warning of an attack and is part of the pain leading up to and during an attack. I use a massage gun (theragun) and go in on my neck as soon as I feel it coming on. It doesn’t always work to prevent but at the least it distracts my pain for a few minutes. I also sometimes find that a hot compress/heating pad or piping hot wash cloth on my neck can help relax it momentarily. maybe it can help you- Sorry to hear your pain. Another note* not sure if people here have a similar experience but when I am entering a flare up/cluster the first few headaches are slightly less severe, as well as the last few when I am coming out of it (usually day 1-2 and then the last few days of the three week cycle). Its almost like I am eased into it and eased out, which is weird because that is how my individual headaches usually are as well. It starts slow, ramps up, peaks, and then I slowly come down. During the first and last few when the headaches are milder, the theragun massage gun ob my neck, if I catch it early enough, can almost stop the headache from fully coming on.

Usually when I feel one coming on, it starts in my neck, and a lot of the tension during the attack is in my neck. Sometimes, if it is mild enough, holding a theragun (massage gun) to my neck will help. If I am too far into the attack or it is severe, the best it can do is distract me from the pain for a minute