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List the funky things you do to combat pain during CH


xBoss
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Hey guys,

After 20+ years of fun times with CH I have developed some pain mgmt tricks that help me cope with the immense pain. Thought I would share.

 

Burning hot showers to the neck.

Tapping or hitting nerves in the neck.

Contorting neck to the left (Left side pain) and laying on my face with tons of weight pressing into the bed or hardwood floors because they are nice and cool.

Yawning. you can get good at triggering yawns if you try, they stretch neck muscles nicely.

Running around the house cursing like a sailor and crying like a baby. (Lol)

 

How about you guys?

 

 

 

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First monster then 02.. 

If shit hits the fan from there I start my pace from upstairs to downstairs on more 02 breathing and spraying the cold O2 on my eye and head.then outside and Have a smoke and tell it to F-off. Then I'm back inside pacing some more maybe cold pack then again to a hot rag..then a shower till all the hot waters gone sitting there shivering in cold water.. then more monster. Low carb that is. Then I tell the beast come get me give me all you got I'm right here and Im not scared.. tears usually by this point. I smile thinking it's all in my head.. Breaking down to almost nothing and mustering up all my strength to hold on to my sanity.. reminding myself it will eventually stop..

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I used to have headaches for about 10y,,,so it took me that long to get to that kind of shape.

When I had my very first headache I was so desperate from pain ,  that I started to exercise , trying to forget it. I realized that my pain was gone while doing push fast paced push ups. I also keep my elbows more paraler (closer) to my body,  to make more of  them .  I dont have my arms wide spread  like you see in any military movie.

I realized that when I start doing them at the very first sign of a headaches , many times it actually aborted the headache totally , especially combined with oxygenl.

I tried cold showers(as a prevention) ,,,it didnt help with CH, and it didnt help with anything else much . It was just a personal challenge .

I tried different kind of exercises but running was making it works, pull ups didnt help,

I don't have a CH now after about 10y of CH's.  Check of my posts to see what helped me.

good luck.

 

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When they were really bad, I'd take a fold of skin and press a syringe through it, and out the other side. I'd do 3-6 of them in a row. The body can only process one source of pain at a time, so when you introduce something new, something intense, the focus of the mind switches to that. If you want to Google it, it's called 'needle play', but don't do it if you're squeamish. 

In more recent years, I've learned how to hide from the pain in my head by focusing on numbers, maths, logical puzzles. This moves my thoughts to the left side of my brain, as it seems the pain is centred in the right side.

I'm weird, that's Ok.

MG

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Funny you say that moxie because I always read about how CH makes it so you cannot sit still but I like to press my head into the bed or floor and sit very still in the dark and I also used the term hide from the pain by trying to get into portions of my head that kinda hide from it.

 

Yeah, the self inflicted pain stuff, hitting, stabbing etc. is pretty normal IMO. We gotta do what we gotta do!

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I did not want to start a whole new thread so I'll mention here since it was funky.

 

The most painful CH I ever has was Summer 2017 and during that moment I heard dancing queen playing in my head perfectly clear like I was playing it. The funny thing is that I heard all the lyrics play and I don't know them. Brain was accessing old memories or something.

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On 3/13/2019 at 9:26 PM, xBoss said:

Funny you say that moxie because I always read about how CH makes it so you cannot sit still but I like to press my head into the bed or floor and sit very still in the dark and I also used the term hide from the pain by trying to get into portions of my head that kinda hide from it.

 

Yeah, the self inflicted pain stuff, hitting, stabbing etc. is pretty normal IMO. We gotta do what we gotta do!

When mine started I found it difficult to stay still. Would pace, and rock back and forth, roll in the bed. Like ants crawling under my skin and I couldn't stay still. I have bad migraines too, and often can't move at all with them, which was one way I could tell early on if it was a migraine or cluster coming.

But, in recent years, I like to curl up in bed and just get lost in my head. I drill deep down into thoughts and storylines, work through logic puzzles, anything to occupy my mind and shut down my body. Suppose it's a sort of meditation. If it's bad, I'll still rock back and forth, the pain does reach a point where there is just no choice. 

MG

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12 hours ago, Rod H said:

I've done alot of push ups myself.  Still do so I'm ready when they come back....

They used to work for me about 80% of the time, but only if I started first 20s-1m of the very first sign of a CH.

You know that very first hit, that might or might not be a beginning of a headache.

In that case push-ups eliminated the CH completely,,after about  3 series of 80 or so ,,with 2min break in between.

If I started after 1min or later,  it hardly ever stopped the CH , but I didn't feel the pain while I was doing them.

I also realized that breathing o2 during my resting time (2m break) between the exercises was helping to eliminate the CH faster , but O2 wasn't really necessary. 

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27 minutes ago, Freud said:

I pace like a mad man too. When on the O2 I rock. In the middle of the night I call it the cluster shuffle mixed with the pp dance (often when I wake up I’ve gotta head to the O2 but the bathroom is calling. 

I used to paced, too, but please read my posts in this tread about push ups,   I helps a lot of ppl , even eliminated the headache completely, if you do it soon enough .

If you can just do 5-6  at first its fine, I think i might help too,...

You will get to 100 in about 4-6 month easily.

 

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I tried exercising, cold and hot packs, yawning,  head punching, and quit smoking, with no results. What seems to be working is the knowledge that they will end and calm music playing all night. As soon as I feel one coming I sit up and rock back and forth concentrating only on the music. Youtube relaxdaily  , He put together a relaxing 9 hour vid that I can play all night. This music thing took a lot of practice but seems to be working, kinda like a miracle. I only get CH's now during extreme low barometric weather events.

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13 minutes ago, doctorssuck said:

I tried exercising, cold and hot packs, yawning,  head punching, and quit smoking, with no results. What seems to be working is the knowledge that they will end and calm music playing all night. As soon as I feel one coming I sit up and rock back and forth concentrating only on the music. Youtube relaxdaily  , He put together a relaxing 9 hour vid that I can play all night. This music thing took a lot of practice but seems to be working, kinda like a miracle. I only get CH's now during extreme low barometric weather events.

Have you tried push ups? I tried pull ups, running, bench press,,,,but push ups were the only type of exercise that worked,  but you must start at the very first sign of CH first 20s I would say.  nothing else worked ever.

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4 minutes ago, johncluster said:

Have you tried push ups? I tried pull ups, running, bench press,,,,but push ups were the only type of exercise that worked,  but you must start at the very first sign of CH first 20s I would say.  nothing else worked ever.

  I didn't try pushups. I mainly went cycling. 

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cycling is cardio , but push ups are more of a strength exercise , so completely different type of exercise.  And it eliminated my CH many times before they could even manifest,,maybe it has smt to do with BP or blood circulation , not sure. Maybe even the position in which are you doing push ups,,,no idea.

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I have seen other comments about laying face down. During my attacks,  my head was always drooped down. It actually hurt to pick it up. light sensitivity, nausea, jaw pain, neck pain and the icepick in the eye type pain just pushed my head down. Maybe the face-down position is helping to flush things out.

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Sitting on the floor rocking back and forth with one eye closed and a heat pack on my head. Some times I will hit the tile floor with a closed fist. It is not uncommon to have a real sore hand and blisters on my head. 

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I started getting clusters when I was 16, just turned 39. I’ve just gotten through another 3 week cluster episode. I used to get them once a year lasting 3-4 weeks with 3-6 attacks a day. As I’ve gotten older it’s now every 2 years. Like clockwork. Early on, large doses of caffeine would sometimes abort a headache. I’ve tried all sorts of treatments, dangerous drugs, more recently verapamil and a corticosteroid. What I’ve found is that the headaches are just going to come. The verapamil will help for about a week, but then my body’s back on the clock to make sure I get a solid 3 weeks even with the interruption. Tactics I’ve learned over the years: breathing hot steam at the onset can give some relief in the very early stages; playing tricks with time - I’ll take whatever drug I have available, usually zomig nasal spray, and tell myself it will start to help in 5 minutes (which it doesn’t) just any kind of trick in my mind to get me through the time; lots of pacing, rocking on hands and knees; this past attack I decided to try pot. I’ve never done it before but honestly I think it was the most effective tool I’ve used to get through the pain. There is nothing that helps during the height of the pain, but it relaxed my body and I was actually able to lay down for the majority of a headache, which is a miracle for me. It would also help me go to sleep. The terrible anxiety, fear and depression that come along with the cycles is all part of it for me. Being able to lay down and go to sleep despite knowing I’ll wake up in panic at 1:00 A.M. is huge. Sorry, this is my first time to post and this is long. Much love to you guys out there going through this. It gives a person a special perspective on suffering for sure.

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6 minutes ago, jilltx said:

I haven’t but I’ll def try it next time. Lol, I’m no good with push ups but I’ll try that next time too! Thanks for the suggestion 

You can try ones where you have you hands on a bed, to make it easier for you .   From my experiences , I had to do them for about 40s-1m,

I think it's being tense and put in a strenuous condition is what is reducing the CH pain  or eliminating the hit completly. .  . So it's not necessary the numbers, but being in that condition where you have to put some effort.  The reason I was doing so many was ,,,it was just too easy for me to do even 50 without any significant effort,,,so I had to push to 80-100 just in one series,,,also I was doing them rather quickly but in good - correct form , otherwise you gonna get hurt eventually.

 Maybe some chemical is being flooded in your brain  while you doing them or it might have to do with blood circulation too or with blood pressure.

Dead lifts might work too, but cardio never helped.

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