Posted by Don on July 29, 1998 at 10:15:57:
I first had clusterheadaches 16 years ago. A prescription of Fiorinal worked wonders and for 10 years I didn't have another cluster. Since 1992, I've had about 6 clusters. While I really hated them, I had grown not to fear them too terribly because the Fiorinal always worked. It never worked quite soon enough and over time I gradually had to take a little bit more but in one way or another it always seemed to provide either complete or 50% relief bringing them to a bearable kind of headache. In my last cycle 18 mos. ago the pills for the first time seemed to be diminished in effectiveness but I still had faith in them. Now in a cycle that began on 7/11, the headaches have been much more frequent triggered by virtually everything, the pain MUCH more excruciating and the Fiorinal generally speaking totally ineffective. Yesterday thinking my pills were simply out of date I went to the doctor who gave me a new prescription for Fiorinal and Fiorinal with codeine, and for the first time for me a prescription for Prednisone because for some I guess this can help break a cycle. I started to have a headache in the afternoon at work, took a Fiorinal which seemed to stabilize things, but within an hour the headache was back this time by far the worst ever. I took two more Fiorinal to no effect at all. I was stuck at my office literally thrashing about from pain, banging and hollering. Luckily my wife was there and she drove me to UCSF emergency room. The folks there were wonderful. But even with three shots of morphine, massive doses of lidocaine, and O2, my headache persisted for hours, although some combination of things did finally work and after about 5 hours my headache was diminished to the point where I could go home. They did not try Imitrex and I have follow up appointments with a headache neurologist next week, but now I am truly scared to death of these things. I cancelled a business trip to Toronto and am supposed to be in a wedding in Texas in August. I don't want to leave home without oxygen, morphine, Imitrex . . . Why do these things suddenly get so much worse?