Posted by John on April 27, 1998 at 15:28:59:
Hello - I'm just starting the 7th week. Diagnosed 3 years ago (@31), I'm only slowly getting up to speed on CH - and this site helps a lot. Based in UK, so don't recognise some of the drug names, still...
Question: do you find a cumulative effect to CH? I am somewhat convinced that, even when I knock out the pain with e.g. CODIS (a dispersible codeine and aspirin pill) and/or an ergotamine inhaler and/or a few spoonfuls of jalapeno chillies, that in some way the "headache", though not felt, persists. Or is this just the drugs? Further, after a while (i.e. 6 weeks of the things) a cumulative exhaustion seems to set in - I get a bit more depressed about the daily battle, and convinced that the brain cells are going mulchy big time (still, learning from another site that CH sufferers IQ averaged 137.6 or some such is comforting there). Certainly, at this stage, I stop putting such a brave face on it for friends and colleagues - and try to explain in a little more detail what it's like. Unfortunately, I haven't really found a good analogy (which would be measured by its "wince factor" i.e. when I used it, people would wince in sympathy - the best I've done so far is explain that when it's really bad [lean forward conspiratorially at this point] "your whole body flinches to try to get away from the pain" which is about 5.5/10 on the wince factor scale. But I want 9! Or 10!
Vague (or other) thoughts on the symptomology of late cluster would be very welcome.
And thanks to the site guru.
John