Afrin is the devil

[siouz76]

At this point in my cycle I've been having either no clusters at night or several. I will wake up around 1AM with the first, use the O2 to abort & go back to sleep & then repeat this process every 2 hours until I get up.

I've noticed lately that during an attack I seem to be getting more & more sinus congestion on the cluster side that doesn't completely go away after the first attack. Thinking that might be somehow inhibiting the effectiveness of the O2 and/or a reason for the multiple attacks, I decided to try Afrin after my first attack on Tuesday night. It cleared my sinuses & I went to sleep & didn't wake up till morning. Yay!

So last night I thought I'd try it at the first sign of an attack. Huge mistake! It did the opposite of what it should normally do. Completely aggravated my sinuses & caused my cluster pain to increase. Then when I started the O2 I didn't get my usual relief. The headache dulled but didn't go away. I ended up using saline to sooth my cluster side. 7 hours later I still have congestion on that side & still have a dull cluster. My Neuro says that the cluster went migranous. In 12 years this has never happened to me.

Has anyone else experienced this? Another lesson learned I guess!

[Brew]

Completely aggravated my sinuses & caused my cluster pain to increase.

Careful. There is a difference between correlation and causation. Not sure there's enough evidence here to point at a cause.

I will give you this: those nasal sprays that cause a chemical shrinking of the sinus membranes can be very addictive in their nature. When you don't have them, the rebound swelling and stuffiness can be overwhelming.

[Racer1_NC]

I find that 4-way nasal spray helps with shadows and the like.....never has caused any negative effects in the years I've used it.....