Cluster Headaches

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. It's been a LONG time. But....

... they are pretty fucking unforgettable.

I read a lot about them in the "old" days. One pattern that was pretty common was that most people "out-grew" them.

I think the most common pattern was that they tailed off (i.e. in frequency) in one's twenties and thirties.

Merciful gods..... that turned out to be my pattern as well. They were bad in my twenties... but relatively infrequent. Then the frequency increased in my late twenties. So did the severity.

I'm 60 now. My last bout.... and by far the most excruciating... was *around* 1990, 91 or 92, I'd say. So I was a bit shy of 40, I guess. Drove myself to the emergency room in the middle of the night with an icepack over one eye. Horrendous, unrelenting pain.

That series... in the early 90's was my last bout w. clusters. Not much is ( or WAS) known about clusters. Enderol was occasionally prescribed. But not for me. Nothing else worked, pain-wise.

(I remember when I was much younger , a chiropractor seemed to interrupt the pattern and reduce the frequency of what I was experiencing. But eventually the bouts returned.)

The "good news": you don't die from them... as far as I know. That feels like a mixed blessing when you're in the middle of one... as I think Joan Didion said about migraine, cluster's kissing-cousin. ( I TOLD you I read a lot about them.)

The bad news is they ... as you are aware... a nitemare.

If you're a lot older than 40, I'd be more careful of a "cluster" diagnosis. For instance, if I had one now ( at my age, after being cluster-free for so long) I'd assume it was something else. And get myself to an internist.

Good luck.