Quote:
Originally Posted by ExtremeBank_Adam
Not so with mine at all...
In fact, my neurologist says I have signs of traditional and cluster migraines. Mine come in clusters... usually two or three times a year, and for 6-8 weeks at a time when they come. But, the severity is unbearable and debilitating... I can't look at ANY light, even the alarm clock in an otherwise pitch black room is too much. I can't hear ANY noise, and I constantly have a nauseous feeling... and they last for hours. The ONLY thing I could take that would work in less than an hour was the Imitrex injections at $100 a pop. But, there was a process that went with that... take the injection, throw up five minutes later, go to sleep. So, it's not something you want to do when you're in public, at work, etc... When I couldn't take the injections, I would take a couple pills (Percocets, Lortabs, etc.), but I would just feel loopy with a headache.
I have had these headaches for almost two decades, and the only thing that has stopped them (without side effects) has been the Botox injections. I'm sold on them...
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Then you should be. Glad they work for you
My apologies; I didn't realize that you don't have cluster headaches as they're usually defined/diagnosed, but have some sort of extremely rare combination - which I should have realized. Yours sound awful
(I unfortunately have experience with both, since I've had clusters for years, and my wife has something called "hemicrania continua" - which is basically a "continuous migraine" - and she's been through almost every migraine treatment there is.)
My suggestions were for people who have traditional cluster headaches; if anyone is curious on the subject, or thinks that they may have clusters instead of migraines:
Cluster headache, nicknamed "suicide headache", is a neurological disease that involves, as its most prominent feature, an immense degree of pain. "Cluster" refers to the tendency of these headaches to occur periodically, with active periods interrupted by spontaneous remissions. The cause of the disease is currently unknown. It affects approximately 0.1% of the population, and men are more commonly affected than women.
The duration of the common attack ranges from as short as 15 minutes to three hours or more. The onset of an attack is rapid, and most often without the preliminary signs that are characteristic of a migraine. However, some sufferers report preliminary sensations of pain in the general area of attack, often referred to as "shadows", that may warn them an attack is imminent. They are often initially mistaken for brain tumors and multiple sclerosis until patients are treated with corticosteroids and then imaged.
The pain of cluster headaches is markedly greater than in other headache conditions, including severe migraines, and experts believe that it may be the most severe pain known to medical science. It has been described by female patients as being more severe than childbirth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_headache