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Cluster Headache Help and Support >> Cluster Headache Specific >> Your First Time....
(Message started by: ElizabethFL on Jul 2nd, 2006, 6:11pm)

Title: Your First Time....
Post by ElizabethFL on Jul 2nd, 2006, 6:11pm
I am sure that this has been talked about before, forgive me as I am a newbie here  :-[ [smiley=laugh.gif]

Where were you, what were you doing the first time "the devil" invaded your head?

I was having sex with my husband.  :o Needless to say he still feels guilty to this day because he feels in some way he started my pain. :(

I know that is not strange because in my research about these headaches, it can be a trigger for some....... ;)


Title: Re: Your First Time....
Post by Kingjames1 on Jul 2nd, 2006, 7:30pm
Liz-Obviously it was your husband's fault. That goes without saying. But I have to ask if you used protection against the cluster headache virus? [smiley=huh.gif]

Title: Re: Your First Time....
Post by Kris_in_SJ on Jul 2nd, 2006, 8:02pm
It was a Friday evening.  I'd finished my week at work and was sipping a glass of wine, while reading a really good book.  I was 42 years old and had never suffered from any type of headache before.

Sudden, severe pain in my sinus radiating out to the temple.  Only lasted about 15 minutes, but when I went in to look in the mirror, my eye on that side was red and drooping badly.  I then had a kip 3-4 that lasted constantly for about 10 weeks.  Diagnosed as mild stroke .... shingles .... trigeminal neuralgia ... then - POOF - gone!

Five years later without any warning, it was back and it was classic.  Diagnosed right away.  I'll always thank my GP for being pretty savvy.

Still, you never forget the first time.

Kris

Title: Re: Your First Time....
Post by georgej on Jul 2nd, 2006, 8:57pm
I was thirteen years old.  1966.  I'd spent the day baling hay for a neighboring farmer for a dollar an hour.  Late that afternoon, I was at home in my room, reading, when I felt my left eye begin to drip tears, and I began to sweat.  The pain started--a red-hot knife behind my eye--and quickly ramped up to what I'd now call a Kip 8.  At that time, of course, I had none of the coping mechanisms and cluster rituals that I've since developed, so I became wild and uncontrolled--raging against the pain.  I'll never forget that feeling of utter helplessness.  Like a rabbit in a trap.  

My mother was home.  She could see right away that I was scared and frantic.  I thought I was having a stroke, and I think she was afraid of that too.  She got out the car to take me to the emergency room, and....it vanished.  

Over the next few years, it would happen sporadically at any time of the day or night.  It soon settled into well-defined Spring and Autumn twice-yearly cycles with nighttime hits almost exclusively.  I was diagnosed when I was sixteen by a very perceptive family doctor.

I'm almost 53  now.

Regards,

George

Title: Re: Your First Time....
Post by AussieBrian on Jul 2nd, 2006, 9:42pm

on 07/02/06 at 19:30:19, Kingjames1 wrote:
Liz-Obviously it was your husband's fault.

Rubbish.  I've never had sex with him and still get hit.

Title: Re: Your First Time....
Post by Weatherman on Jul 2nd, 2006, 9:51pm
14 1/2 years ago. I was the food & beverage manager at a major country club in Charlotte, NC. It was the middle of a huge dinner rush in the main dining room on a Friday night.

Then the beast found me. Looking back, it had to be at least a kip7. I had no idea what was happening to me. After about 10 minutes of trying to act like nothing was wrong, people started asking me if I was ok. Well, I wasn't.

I finally couldn't take it anymore and went and hid in a nearby linen closet. It was a well organized closet with several shelves full of neatly stacked table cloths and napkins. I spent the next 30 minutes in that closet thrashing about wondering if I was going to die.

And then as quickly as it came, it was gone. Now the linen closet was less than pretty. I didn't even realize what I had been doing. Almost every piece of linen was on the floor and tossed about. I had ruined so much linen that we had to use paper place mats on the tables until the next linen delivery the following Tuesday. I had a tough time explaining that one to the big boss.

The good news was, I was the food and beverage manager so I had the power to make someone else go and clean up the linen room. ;)  The only one that ever knew what really happened was my boss because I had to explain why we were using paper place mats all weekend.

I found a more appropriate place to hide during my future attacks in my first cycle. Doctors had no clue so I just suffered. Eventually they just stopped. The next year, right on time, here they came again. Doctors still no clue. Still I suffered and did a lot of hiding.

Finally, after 13 years, I was properly diagnosed. I'm now in my second cycle with proper treatment. What a difference! As you all know, it's still no fun, but at least I am able to function most of the time.

Thanks
Doug

Title: Re: Your First Time....
Post by dissident on Jul 3rd, 2006, 2:02am
I'll never forget it. I was 16 years old. I was at my best friends house (Brad). We had been up all night tripping on some good "teenage mutant ninga turtle" triple dipped blotter (had been doing it every night for a week up to that point). It was super intense. The next morning we were laying around trying to get some sleep and out of nowhere BAM. I got this horrible, nightmarish pain in the side of my head. I had felt this pain before throughout childhood (probably 20 times) but they were always quick jolts that never lasted more than a few seconds. I expected the pain to subside instantly but it didn't. I started running around my buddys room holding my head telling him something was wrong. The whole time he was laughing (still coming down from the trip). I opened his bedroom door and took off to find the nearest medicine cabinet. He freaked out...he didn't want his parents seeing us all "strung out" but I didn't care...I needed something, anything! His mom gave me some Tylenol and told me to go lay down. Life was never the same after that.
This is why I KNOW deep in my heart that LSD/Shrooms can play some kind of role in CH. In my case the LSD may have actually triggered my first cycle. I'll never know. I was getting CH two months out of EVERY year until July 4th 2001 when I ate a small amount of shrooms. Now I only get CH every two years!
To this day I think of Brad when I get a cluster. Brad was killed by a drunk driver 3 years later at the young age of 19  - he would be 30 now :'(

Title: Re: Your First Time....
Post by jenrob2006 on Jul 3rd, 2006, 10:07am
I was 15 years old and it was Easter.  I was in my room and it just hit.  I ran into my mom's room and started rolling on the bed and screaming.  I was telling her to squeeze my head.  She did and then she gave me a percocet.  It subsided in about 30 mins, but the pain pill made my so whoozy that I fell asleep at my aunt's house for Easter dinner and got in trouble for being anti-social.

Title: Re: Your First Time....
Post by Charlotte on Jul 3rd, 2006, 3:41pm
I don't remember the 1st time getting hit but I remember the first time I saw someone's reaction to each of my wierd things I do when getting hit, like running back & forth as fast as I can, staring into space in my old little world of pain, sweating, 1st aphasia, etc.

It's just wierd.  

If someone offered me a cure, but I'd have to give up all the things I've come to think of as me, I'd be torn.

Charlotte

Title: Re: Your First Time....
Post by BarbaraD on Jul 4th, 2006, 8:21am
I was sleeping and the beast woke me up about 4a.m. with about a Kip 10. I thought I had a brain tumor and was going to die. Went to the doc and, of course, got a shot of demrol. No help there. About two months later the same thing happened and then they just went away for about two years.

Then same old thing except about a month later, my sister-in-law got tired of it and got me in Scott and White hospital and I got diagnosed and then the fun began. Years later, doctors and doctors later, I finally found my neuro and have been with him ever since.

took me years to accept the fact that I have CH and there's not a darn thing I can do about it, so finally learned to accept them as part of my life and now I'm pretty laid back with them. I get hit - I do the abortative thing and get over them and go on about my business.

Hugs BD

Title: Re: Your First Time....
Post by Sandy_C on Jul 4th, 2006, 1:13pm
Nice warm May evening, 1999 (age 53 at the time), went to friends house for an impromptu get together with a bunch of couples for cookout, drinks and shooting a little pool.  At 8:30 on the dot, felt a sharp stabbing pain in my right eye that completely startled me.  Within 5 minutes, I was squeezing my head, right eye and nostril running like a leaky faucet, and yelling for my husband to take me home NOW!   I thought I was showing the beginning signs of a brain aneurysm because my mother had one and she described the pain in her head as like nothing she had ever experienced in her life.  Within 30 minutes, it was gone - like it never happened. [smiley=huh.gif]

Next evening, we had to go to a friend's birthday party, cookout, drinks, good company.  Bingo - 8:30 again.  This time, I didn't even go looking for my husband, I just grabbed my keys, told a friend to tell him I had to leave again and to walk himself home when he wanted.  I'll never know how I drove that 1/2 mile home without killing myself or someone else, but I did.  Hubby came home quickly and couldn't believe what he was seeing! Then again, 30 minutes later - poof - gone.  I was so exhausted and frightened I just sat there and cried all night long.  Next morning, Sunday, I realized it probably wasn't an aneurysm  or a brain tumor if the pain was like clockwork, so I started researching the symptoms and learned about cluster headaches.  My first cycle ended on July 26, 1999, the evening of my daughter's wedding.  I get cycles every 1 1/2 to 2 years so far, and the rest, is as they say, history.

Sandy

Title: Re: Your First Time....
Post by Barry_T_Coles on Jul 4th, 2006, 7:58pm
Just another day; finished work and had a couple of beers with the guys, went home and was sitting on the patio with the wife relaxing with my now fourth beer when I felt the pain starting in my jaw and very quickly radiated to my eye and growing in intensity until I couldn’t stand it any more so belted a couple of Forte tabs down the throat ( I may have just as well shoved them in my ears for all the good they did ).

I hid myself in the spare bedroom for the next hour thrashing around on the bed, floor and halfway in between, then it disappeared just as quick as it came, I emerged feeling a little weary but none the worse.

I didn’t get another that night or the next day until just about spot on the same time next day sitting on the patio I get another just like the day before, back into the spare room again for another round with the beast, I’m now thinking there’s something wrong here so got myself into my Doc the next day to get checked out.

My Doc couldn’t find anything physically wrong with me but took blood samples Etc and prescribed extra Forte tabs for me, that night same time as the last 2 days I get whacked again, once again of to what I now call my dungeon.
Back to the Doc the next day cos I’m getting a little twitchy about this thing and she concluded that it was probably the virus that was going around at the time that was giving people pretty severe headaches.

This daily ritual went on and increased to some days having up to four hits a day; the cycle as I now know it lasted around 10 weeks and simply disappeared for 5 years until as before sitting on the patio relaxing with the wife its back again, back to the Doc and this time she saw me having a hit in her rooms and recognised what it was and as we say the rest is history.

I’ve learned more about this condition over the last 18 months because of this site than I ever would have anywhere else and I’m glad my Doc pointed me here.

Title: Re: Your First Time....
Post by lashultz on Jul 4th, 2006, 8:14pm
I will never forget it . I finished wprk for the night. Came home and all of a sudden the pain started. It was in 1994. Never had such pain and wondered what I did to cause it. It took 4 years to get it diagnosed correctly. Before that night,  I would think that anyone who complained about a headache was a wus, boy was I wrong, because I am now a very big wus.


                                        lashultz

Title: Re: Your First Time....
Post by unsolved1 on Jul 4th, 2006, 8:17pm
How could I forget ? It was my 19th birthday, I was at my parents house with immediate family and it came out of nowhere. I thought I was dead! I was freakin' out so off to the ER we went. The ER took me straight back and gave me Morphine IV that stopped the attack and knocked me out for the rest of the day & night. It was only the beggining ... the next day the same thing happened and I knew I had a serious problem .... I just didn't know at the time that I would still be dealing with headaches like those !   :-/

UNsolved

Title: Re: Your First Time....
Post by spidey426 on Jul 6th, 2006, 2:47am
That's funny, I was just about to start a post that asked this question and I saw this.

7 years ago, I was 21.. driving on the Mass Pike to go visit an ex-girlfriend. It wasn't bad, probably a kip 5 or so, cause I kept driving and didn't pull over or anything. Just opened the window and wondered what the hell was wrong with me.. I thought maybe it was a sinus headache or maybe an allergic reaction to something in Massachusetts, lol..  Anyways, the beast ruined my much anticipated visit.. I spent most of it alone, battling the bastard.

spidey

Title: Re: Your First Time....
Post by chopmyheadoff on Jul 12th, 2006, 2:35am
My first hit happened to me when i was about 11 or 12. I remember coming in from playing outside and just getting this unbelievable headache. Must have been a kip 6 or 7.
anyway, it went after about 3 hours and i never got another one until i was 21, thats when the fun began.
Im now 27 and a chronic sufferer, iv only just been diagnosed by a great man called Dr Silver who im lucky enough to have in my local hospital as a neurologist.
I have found imigran and finally feel like i have a bit of control over something that has quite literally taken over my life for the last 7 years.
:'(



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