Very strange. My headaches over the years have changed. Originally, they were hardly ever at night (20 yrs ago), now, with this cluster, it's exclusively at night.

Also, to try to help not have them, I am taking 10 mg Melatonin, but I am still waking up about 1 1/2 hours after falling asleep.... with the beast just nudging me, but with my trusty O2 at 15 psi at my side, it stops him and I fall asleep. (Last night I later awakened to find my O2 empty cause I fell asleep with it on....oops!)
Now, what happens the rest of the night is NEW for me, but from what I have read, it is the norm for others.

Every 1 - 1 1/2 hours throughout the night, I awaken the same way as the first time and  go through the same routine and yes, it is aborted. As long as I am able to quickly get the O2 going and hyperventilate, the Beast never tries to explode my brain. 
This can happen up to 5 times a night. Now, it's great, of course, that I don't get a full headache, but still, I get hardly any sleep.

Are there any ideas to keep this from continuing throughout the night?

Oh, another different thing with this year's cluster is that the pain meds that I would use sometimes when the O2 didn't work, are not working at all on it. I tried to use them before I was able to get the O2 from my Neurologist. Strange. They always did, for all these years they did. Now it's almost like taking sugar pills. (It's been over a year since I used them) Has this happened before?

Funny how it is easier to get pain meds than O2!   

Thanks all.

Would be helpful if you gave info about the specific meds/doses are are/have used.

Preventives?; "pain meds"--what?

What I have found through out the years of having these are there is really no normal from cycle to cycle.  In the beginning when I was young (17) my cycle was every May through Sept everyday one hit a day lasting about an hour.  Same time.

When I finally found a Dr. that didn't tell me that I was female so I didn't have clusters and started with DHE 45 injections they would work but I found I would get more hits per day. 

Years later I started to skip years but when they returned they were worse then ever and if I aborted one the beast would find a way to bring another.  I could get hit in the middle of the night and if I aborted that one then my time would change and it would hit me again several hours later. 

What I'm thankful for is I have over the years (33) my cycle has not only shorten (4-6 weeks) but I've also skip years UNLESS I take a med/vitamin that plays with Serotonin like 5http.  I found that this is what triggered my last cycle two years ago.  Once I stopped that my cycle ended about 3 weeks later.  My 2011 cycle was the shortest and the least traumatic cycle that I have ever had.

I was never able to find a med that could be used as a preventive so my whole life has been based on abortive.

Good Luck, and wishing you PFN soon.

(Last night I later awakened to find my O2 empty cause I fell asleep with it on....oops!)

I overlooked this in your first post. A good time to remind people if you use a non-re-breather mask, especially for the night time wake up hits, cut the strap off of the mask. That way if you do drift off after aborting the hits, there's no chance of your suffocating when the 02 shuts off!

I'm so sorry to hear about your husband. Sustained stress is a big time trigger for me too. I'll be keeping both of you in my thoughts.

Joe

Thanks Joe and Mike for your info about the O2.
I do however remember reading about that somewhere on the website, so I already knew not to put the green elastic band around my head. I do keep it on though and just don't use it so that I can use it to have it hang from the metal hook on the E tank roller/carrier.

Glad u guys are out there helping all of us 'cluster heads'.
I wish everyone that fights the Beast would find you.

Also, I wish more people were informed about cluster headaches. Most people don't have a clue about them. "Oh, yea, I get Migraines sometimes." People say. I usually tell them to take their headache and times it by 10 and that is a cluster headache!

I know even doctors fall short sometimes. I know I was misdiagnosed for years with migraines. I knew the nature of the Beast, but still one new doctor just recently, just because I am a woman, wanted to tell me that I have migraines, that along with the fact that since I was using Vicodin, most of the time I did not have the pacing of the hallways of the house; I could actually lay down. (back when vicodin took the edge off)

My husband even used to rub my back to give me something to focus my attention on. I found that if I focused on the pain, that it would get worse, then I WOULD do the rocking dance.   

Thanks again for caring so much.   

Robbie