mania and depression - are clusters a bi-product of bi-polar

[Monica]

Hello,

I just recently had one of the worst cluster periods aft e two years of keeping them at bay.  But I've noticed a pattern for me.  When I feel the clusters coming, I feel a wave of mania, typically around doing art, maybe buying stuff, rearranging my house.  And then when they are in full swing I feel like my brain loops thoughts, ie. songs, ideas, stories or conversations.  And my dreams are out of control.  I also go through a huge depression, but I guess that's to be expected.  I'm just trying to understand, could the headaches be a part of Bi-polar disorder or is it just that the clusters are contributing to this behavior?  Is anyone out the Bi-Polar and have clusters?  Does anyone feel the way I feel?  Should I look into this? 

Thanks,

Monica

[BoscoPiko]

Hi Monica,

Sorry you are having a hard time. I don't think there is much of a correlation between CH and bi-polar. Some studies have been done on the subject and it seems that a very low percentage of CH sufferers are afflicted with the disorder (around 6% or so). It seems that migraine has a higher association with bi-polar. Depression however is something that many with CH suffer from, myself included. Either way it couldn't hurt to talk to your doctor about the sort of feelings you are experiencing.     

ATB

[snafu]

20 hours ago, Monica said:

 Is anyone out the Bi-Polar and have clusters?  Does anyone feel the way I feel?

No, doesn't apply to me

[devonrex]

I have had depression my entire life, not bipolar, but the beast sure as hell deepens my depression. Now, I am chronic, so the leading up does not really apply but I will act manic when I have any sort of break, to get things done.

[Juss]

That is an interesting pet hypothesis; however, causation is not correlation. I have been through it all with psychiatric issues. Mine began with the misdiagnoses of Bipolar I, Rapid Cycle with Mixed States. At that time, 1997, Dr. DePaulo the founder of the Mood Disorder Clinic at Johns Hopkins called it Manic Depression. This is a complicated story.

By 2001, they suspected that I was emerging Borderline. Both the Manic Depressive and Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis were off. It took a psychotherapist to figure it out, Adult Attachment Disorder with Generalized Trauma-last month. 

Anyways, the amphetamines and SSRI antidepressants, even the tricyclics foment mixed episodes where I am both manic and depressed. This also foments chronic end-stage catatonia depression, which leads to electroconvulsive therapy. I can tell you when in mixed states my migraines with aura, and the cluster headaches become intractable. When off all those drugs, the headache medication and magnesium place me in near remission-it is interesting. 

 

I was heavy into amphetamines, blow, hard drugs, running shine to pay, and yeah “Left Turn at A Red Light, Rickey Medlocke sums it up. That may have been part of it.  There is a price to being a rambler, a Southern Outlaw, I'm past the point of no return, so I live as an outlaw. The hell with it, if I go back to the joint, so what. My idols are Waylon Jennings, Johny Paycheck, and David Allan Coe-I strive to live my life as they did. 

I wonder if those 60 Electroconvulsive Shock Therapy Treatments altered my tolerance to Toprimate.  Before ECT, I could not titrate Topomax, after ECT, and a two year process, I am comfortably at 100mg, damn near remission. It’s flipping odd.
 

And, I have compression of the spinal cord in the neck, and I have potential ACDF and TLIF (both multilevel) if the spinal canal closes further. I’ve had a laminectomy already, wait was it 2? I don’t remember they removed a few vertebrae to open the spinal canal. Similar shit in the neck.  

I can’t out rule a psychosomatic factor, in fact there used to be expurgated evidence to substantiate this. Yet, I threw it out. You will have to take my word. 

The question posed should be how does trauma correlate with Cluster Headaches and Migraine? It does not have to be complex PTSD, generalized trauma is bad enough. Shell shock (combat PTSD) really does shit, though my friend won’t admit it. Trauma causes all types of emotional and physical pain, that I know. 
 

I notice pain reduction with attachment therapy, exposure therapy, transference focused psychodynamic therapy, and interpersonal psychodynamic therapy. I’ve witnessed EMDR therapy stop peoples and treat peoples migraines, if trauma related. Shapiro was a fucking genius. All the psychotherapy’s help. The cognitive therapies (CBT, DBT) don’t seem to help. 

I hope this answers the question to some extent. 
 

Edit: On top of this psych issue I am Italian, Croatian, Irish, did time in Max Security with triple lifers carrying a blick in case someone tried to chop me up. Most of us had some makeshift swords, my point is I admit to a temper from all the trauma and genetics.
 

When I fly off the handle and destroy things I get a massive attack. I am down to flipping a shit a few times a month, meaning that is when I get nailed. There is something to be said for that matter as well. Anger, Trauma, and Psych issues all correlate. As does being on point after being bunked with true antisocial murderers that did not understand why their crimes were wrong. 

[Music]

I get the looping tunes too. It's like everything i've ever heard compressed. 

[Believetwit]

I went through something similar and ended up talking to people who really got the mental health side of things. Cluster headaches completely wreck me emotionally sometimes, and sorting out what’s from that and what’s more like bipolar isn’t easy. If you're hitting a wall or just want someone to talk to now, mentalhealthhotline.org has folks who actually listen and know their stuff. Helped me not feel so stuck.

[Bibbers]

Yes, this is also a pet theory of mine. My husband has ECH and had a litany of trauma growing up from alcoholism and drug addiction in his parents, physical abuse, homelessness after leaving his home early, death of friends and close family as a young man. 

 

I just finished The Mindbody Prescription book, which is primarily about repressed rage and grief, and how it will present as pain in the body as a way of distracting the mind from its subconscious feelings. 

 

But what's more, it is absolutely possible for the limbic system to form neural pathways to the hypothalamus and cause autonomic dysregulation. 

[NeitherHere]

Diagnosed c-ptsd, bipolar, bpd, take the book flip through the pages and point at something and i'm sure a doctors tried putting that label on my files. 

 

I was raised around hard drug use, extreme dv,psychological abuse, malnutrition, outright neglect, had a crippling liquor cns depressants addiction namely opiates and multiple cns depressants together i.e. handle of vodka with a bunch of opiates and barbiturates. 

 

Did 15+ years trauma therapy. I recovered from most of it but I still don't trust people as a rule of thumb. I've seen too much to blindly hand people trust. 

I've also had atleast 6 concussions and multiple critical heat/dehydration events. Atleast 3 of each of the above including loss of identity and consensus reality as well as having to relearn how to spell. 

My clusters started about 3-4 years ago. I was going through some massive betrayals and I was exceptionally pissed off. I mean like.. do some crazy crap pissed off. I was driving and my blood was boiling when out of no where I had my first attack. It was like the rage itself had manifested the clusters. 

I got past the stuff that had me so angry, made ammends but the clusters have haunted me since. I consider it gods gift. A persistent reminder that no one is allowed to piss me off like that unless I allow them too. I've survived much worse so why am I going to allow something to convince me that life isn't worth it when I've seen quite the contrary. I'm scared of death much more than i'm scared of misery. 

 

This cycle I've decided to weaponize my clusters to my benefit. Everytime it pisses me off its time to train. Everytime it gets me feeling hopeless i'm going to do intense workouts. If I so much as even think about death its running until I can't catch my breath. 

 

I've survived too much to let a headache to let me think life isn't worth it. On the contrary, I welcome the pain. Make me stronger. Make me harder to weaken. Its misery, theres days I dont want to be here about it, but thats my pain leaving the body. Thats my psychy cracking under load. It makes more sense for me to fortify than it does to lessen the load. That's not to say that I won't try to bust but if a car cracks a block of driveway you dont stop parking there you make the pad thicker. 

 

I will train my brain to treat these headaches as a personal attack that must be met with extreme prejudice. Harden the defenses. 

 

The diagnosis' are nothing more than labels trying to explain a history that is unexplainable. Those doctors did nothing but slap bandaids on the issues and teach me to be okay with the things that happened. I wish they would have made me angry towards the issues, taught me to harvest that pain and suffering for growth. None of what I endured is okay. It never was. None of those medications benefited me, all they did was allow me to stay weaker longer. 

 

Si vis pacem parabellum.