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Title: Lady clusterheads please tell your story... Post by Redd715 on Apr 24th, 2004, 7:23pm Has any lady here ever been told that her CH is a product of, or be being made worse by past physical-emotional-or sexual-abuse or extreem stress, before or while getting treatment for the HA's? Did anyone ever hear of *therapy* being effective in reduceing or elimiating a womans need for meds to help control her CH? Was just curious..seems there is a doctor who believes this is the case. Wondered what your experiences have been with this. |
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Title: Re: Lady clusterheads please tell your story... Post by Karla on Apr 24th, 2004, 9:31pm My job working as a computer programmer / systems analyst is a highly stressfull job with very tight deadlines where your but is on the line constantly and you have to put in lots of overtime. I had a couple of drs and neuros tell me they thought that stress was triggering and agrivating my ch. I quit working and went on disability and it made no difference in my ha. Also I was sent to a shrink because they thought biofeedback would help me but that was just a joke. The shrink couldn't believe how relaxed i was after hearing about my homelife, ministry, and working full time. He gave up on me rather quickly and said it wasn't my head. But I have been that route. |
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Title: Re: Lady clusterheads please tell your story... Post by Redd715 on Apr 25th, 2004, 1:43pm Thank you Karla, this is helpful. I do hope other women are willing to come here and tell what experiences they have had in this area. |
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Title: Re: Lady clusterheads please tell your story... Post by maryo on Apr 25th, 2004, 8:00pm I work in the medical field and can tell you it's getting better but women more than men have their medical problems attributed to upset, anxiety, and stress. My sister once got mad at me when I was in the midst of a headache (the daytime migraine instead of the nighttime cluster), admonishing me for "not doing anything" about my headaches. I replied that I had seen 8 doctors, 3 neuros, 3 acupuncturists, 2 homeopaths, several massage therapists, several counselors, and a bunch of people I could not longer remember. I didn't mention I had considered on more than one occasion driving into a tree, and I also let her live. A guy in Britain discovered an anomaly in the hypothalamus of people with clusters. So when people say, "Do you think it's stress?" I suppress the urge to strangle them and mention that Brit doc's discovery. In my opinion, clusters have a mind of their own. By the way, the first time I suggested to my doctor that perhaps these nighttime waking nightmares were clusters, he said probably not because only 10% of women get them. Right! |
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Title: Re: Lady clusterheads please tell your story... Post by purpleydog on Apr 25th, 2004, 8:50pm Another question would be, how many men have their doctor's suggesting "stress management", or run some tests and tell you if they don't find anything that it's all in your head! I didn't have the best parents by far, and I always kept this info to myself, knowing the doc would blame that on my headaches. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? My current doc, who I did tell, suggested therapy and I went for 8 sessions. The therapist told me I was fine. I believe docs (male ones) subscribe to the old theory of diagnosing women with hysteria for lack of having a [/i]handy[i] diagnosis, or understanding of the problem. My HA are the same, no better and no worse. My therapist said my HA were not stress-related. Several docs and neuros have told me it's stress related. The funny thing is handle stress pretty well. purpleydog |
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Title: Re: Lady clusterheads please tell your story... Post by Redd715 on Apr 25th, 2004, 9:07pm Yes, the men are welcome to pipe in here too. I'm asking because of the brick walls so many have run into. So many FP's and GP's, Internal Medicine specialists, Mental health specialists, and as you all are aware, even neuologists that just don't have the knowlege of this condition. I'm trying to gain a bit of background as to if anyone has run into this same wall...or if it was actually helpfull. My concern of this is that if there are doctors assuming that their most successfull treated cases of women with CH actaully are presenting their stress or abuse in physical forms. I worry about the assumptions that will be made about the women with CH who have never been abused or lead rather stress free lives outside of dealing with this excuciateing pain. See what I'm trying to get at here? Oh and another thing that I have read from the fine folks here. Stressfull times in itself is a faily good preventive. It's when you've relaxed that the beast tends to hit the hardest. Now if this is so, wouldn't the stress management idea, and biofeedback, and the other stuff actually serve to make matters worse and not better? |
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Title: Re: Lady clusterheads please tell your story... Post by TxBasslady on Apr 25th, 2004, 9:42pm IMHO.....stress has diddly to do with CH. Alot of CH'ers say that stress keeps the beast away. I had great parents.....a great childhood.... I retired in 1994.....had my first CH in January of 2001. The only stress I have is when I have to make a connecting flight and miss it.....LMAO I think when one finds a doc that really knows about CH....they'll discover that stress or abuse is NOT a factor. We are just the "chosen ones". PF vibes, Jean |
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Title: Re: Lady clusterheads please tell your story... Post by thomas on Apr 26th, 2004, 6:41pm My neuro doesn't have a clue as to what causes ch. So, imho, he has a leg up on the rest of the egomaniacs some of you are being treated by. |
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Title: Re: Lady clusterheads please tell your story... Post by rbmb on Apr 26th, 2004, 7:30pm Logic tells me that headaches and stress are related because I've gotten tension type headaches in the past after stressful events but cluster HAs are a horse of a different color if my experience means anything. A few months ago, my company sent me to a strange city to oversee moving our corporate headquarters to another city. I hadn't met any of the people I had to work with, I was working out of a hotel room, it was completely disorganized and I had a deadline to meet. The stress level was extreme, but I didn't have any HAs because I wasn't in a cycle. The cycles just seem to start and end when they feel like it regardless of what is going on in my life and I just can't seem to pinpoint any relationship between external stress-causing events and CHs. That said, I do normally wake up with a HA an hour or so after I've gone to sleep, presumeably when I'm relaxed, so there could be some kind of stress release thing going on there......however I attribute it to some kind of chemical imbalance. (You did say it was ok for men to chime in). Rich |
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Title: Re: Lady clusterheads please tell your story... Post by Redd715 on Apr 26th, 2004, 7:59pm Yes I did...and thank you rich...although I was hopeing to get feedback regarding anyone being refered for thereapy under the presumption that stress-emotional/pysical/sexual abuse was the underlying cause of their CH. I talk about everything with my Specialist and she asked me point blank if the person I heard this from was once again my ex BF. I admited that it was. Her responce and I quote... "I see he still hasn't gotten his head out of his ass. He can ask as many tainted and biased questions to as many people as he wants and he'll keep getting the answers he's digging for. " |
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Title: Re: Lady clusterheads please tell your story... Post by sandie99 on Apr 27th, 2004, 4:51am Nope. But when you come to think of it, my CH started after I had begun my university studies in a foreign country, living on my own, taking care of myself... Stress? Oh yes. But nobody has ever suggested me therapy. Once in a while it has crossed my mind, though. Best wishes & PFdays, sandie99 |
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Title: Re: Lady clusterheads please tell your story... Post by Ann on Apr 27th, 2004, 7:52am Redd, oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah!! I was sent to a therapist by my GP way back when she couldn't figure out what was going on. In her defense, my husband had committed suicide and she figured it was the cause of my CH. Too bad she didn't hear/listen to me say...this started about a year ago. (read: one year before he killed himself!) Anway...I've been sent to psychologists, chiro's, nutrionists..you name it. All for not obviously!! I read your story last week about your boyfriend. I agree with your doc...his head is too far up his ass to see the light! Hang in there! hugs Ann |
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Title: Re: Lady clusterheads please tell your story... Post by Tiannia on Apr 27th, 2004, 6:03pm When I first started getting these the Pain mgmt doc I see for my back decided they where tension HA. He did triggerpoints into my shoulders and neck telling me they would stop.. RIGHT!?!?!? well 10 months later I am still here. To be honest I had a more stressful job before these started. I quit and started a new job with less stress in June with almost $10 grand more a year and these started in July. So if stress is the trigger then mine happened backwards |
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Title: Re: Lady clusterheads please tell your story... Post by AlienSpaceBabe on May 3rd, 2004, 1:42pm on 04/25/04 at 21:07:05, Redd715 wrote:
I'm half way through my 2 1/2 year long cycle. My last killer CH was during the fire.... since then I've had four minor CHs (Kip 5) and a handful of shadows, all of which showed up as I began to deal with the stress of all of this. That's it - no big-time CH since the fire.... for me, extreme stress seems to be keeping the beast away, and as the stress slowly lessens the beast slowly returns. JMHO. |
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Title: Re: Lady clusterheads please tell your story... Post by Filbert on May 3rd, 2004, 2:13pm Hi to all Just to add my 2 pence.I agree with a lot of people on this topic. It seems relaxation is our enemy rather than stress. There was a topic on this subject over on ouch uk a few months back and the vast majority of posts backed this view up. People with very stressful jobs often didn't get hit until work was over and then bang as soon as they wound down the beast was pounding on the door. Perhaps this would explain why so many of us get hit soon after falling asleep!Anyway just my thoughts. All the best Filbert |
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Title: Re: Lady clusterheads please tell your story... Post by Redd715 on May 3rd, 2004, 2:16pm Dearest friends...You are so kind to offer up your life experiences and all the crud you have been threw trying to get some effective relief. All the snake oil remedies, the well meaning, yet totally clueless folks who have the wonder cures for us all. If anyone would care to continue to add to this thread it's open to all... Any other snake oil treatments that you have been offered or undergone? |
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