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Intensity of CH pain


mit12
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Is there such thing as one person having CH with lower level of pain? I have been diagnosed with both CH and Migraine. But both headaches hurt in the same place just at way different levels. The ones I call CH feel like someone putting a rod through my eye and it comes out the back of my neck just below my skull. And the ones that I call Migraines hurt the same area just way less painful. 

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Yes. At times, the pain of CH can be much lower than other times. I don't have migraine, so I can't compare there. Sorry. :(

Since starting the D3 regimen, my overall pain levels have really dropped. And ramp up is slower, so I have more time to treat a hit at a low level.

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Pain levels usually will remain fairly standard from attack to attack unless its treated with something, like 02.

That said the pain can vary from attack to attack with some people.

The main thing is going to be the other diagnostic criteria for clusters and if they remain the same. If these other "headaches" come around the same time of day each day (or whatever your schedule is) and they last about the same length of time, then they are most likely lower level cluster attacks and not migraines. 

If they happen outside your normal cluster schedule and they last 5 hours or 2 days, or ???, they are migraines.

Bob

 

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Thanks Bob. It makes a little more sense now. I thought that I was having some strange migraines because they hurt in the exact same place came at the same time of day but did not hurt as bad.

Spiny, I have been on the D3 program for a while now and I tend to agree. 

Thanks for the replies.

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Hi Mit12,

From what i could read from your other posts in this forum I have exactly the same as you.

With me migraine always start with an attack of mild intensity between 4 - 5 am. Always the same time. By the time I get up however, the headache is gone and I can function normal. But if around early afternoon I start to feel my right ear glowing and a slight pressure on my eye followed by slight dizziness and when the nausea and aversion for light start to kick in its time to go into a dark room in my bed and rest. But then the intensity is gradually increasing and increasing. The pain behind the eye and on the temple get so excruciating that it feels like someone is cutting with a glowing scalpel in these nerves around that area. The eye start to get red and I get a running nose. Stay in my bed has now become impossible and I get up and walking around very agitated. It happened a few time I passed out from the intensity of the pain. After an hour the pain goes away and in 50 % of the cases, the migraine also goes away but if it does not, such an attack can come again as long as the migraine takes (usually 48 hours).

Now I always have used Zomig to abort the attacks and that has worked perfectly but I was taking Zomig too much for my liking and so I decided to visit a neurologist specialized in migraine in the University Hospital here in Belgium. After telling my story in all detail, he came back with an attestation that I was diagnosed with cluster headaches during migraine and the prescriptions for oxygen. I was very surprised because I have never considered CH. He told me that this is rare to have CH like this but that it is a known pathology. I have the two really linked together. In my case CH will never appear outside a migraine attack and on the other side, if I let my migraine untreated, cluster events will always appear. 

To my big surprise, the oxygen works like charm ! To be short, my Zomig use has gone from 4 pills a month on average to zero ! Oxygen seems to work best after the first morning attack has eased. If I can then take 15 min oxygen, its all gone. 

To compare both cluster headache and migraine, none of them is for the faint of heart. I fear cluster headache for its extreme pain which is very sharp and very concentrated on one point and extremely intense. Migraine is more a throbbing and pushing pain far less intense but migraine can one make so miserable and ill because the entire system is gradually shutting down and worse, if untreated, a migraine attack can take up to 72 hours without any relief in between. 

 

 

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Thank you for posting this, Siegfried.  There has been a long debate about whether such as thing as "cluster migraines" exists, combining the symptoms of both.  I'm sorry that you seem to be one of the rare cases where there is such a thing. And I am very, very glad that oxygen works so well for you! 

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Siegfried,

Because I suffer from both Migraines and CH it took 10 years for my doctor to diagnose me with CH. All my symptoms were migraine symptoms. It wan not intil I went to an appointment and my doctor noticed that I was sweating a little and he asked me what was wrong. I told him that I had a kidney stones. He asked me how I could drive and function with kidney stones and I told him that they are nothing compared to my headaches. He started treating me for CH and I went from headaches 3 to 5 days a week to 1 or 2 per week. My abort of choise has always been Zomig. My insurance at the time would give me 72 for a three month period. I would runout before the new prescription would renew. Long story short, my headaches were craving Zomig and if I did not take it I was in a consistent migraine cycle and wold get CH events also. I was at my wits end when I found Cluster Busters. I asked about busting, O2 and had to try something because I could not live like that any longer. I stopped taking Diltiazem Zomig and Percodan for 5 days and started the busting process. It saved my life! Now days I only take Zomig when I am somewhere that will not allow me to use O2 or if I am not having much luck with O2. life is good now! I can go a few days or even weeks pain free. I know most of my triggers and the ones I can avoid i do and the others I deal with. This site and its great people have helped me more than words can say. 

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CHfather,

You are one of those special people that I talk about on this site. I was one of those people that said O2 did not work for me, it was you that encouraged me to try it again with the high flow and proper mask. Your encouragement has changed my life.

Thank you my friend.

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