Posted by Hal (206.15.142.228) on September 08, 1999 at 17:12:49:
In Reply to: Fiorinal w/ Codeine posted by Craig on September 08, 1999 at 09:20:07:
Fiorinal with codeine will stop a so-called “stress headache” dead in its tracks. However, this combination has no effect whatever against a cluster attack. My personal favorite drug for clusters is verapamil. It won’t abort a cluster the way that Fiorinal (you don’t even need the codeine) will kill a stress headache. What happens is that, as soon as you start taking Verapamil (I take 480 mg. a day during an episode), the cluster attacks very quickly get weaker and weaker by the night, until, finally, they disappear.
I wouldn’t toss the Fiorinal with codeine, though. There’s probably nothing better for stopping hangovers and other non-cluster headaches. I never leave home without it!
My cluster attacks are episodic and, like you, I can tell weeks or even months beforehand when I’m going to have an episode. First, I get a toothache with a special kind of pain that tells me not to bother going to the dentist. Then, the whole right side of my head begins to ache, something like the result of having been smacked upside the head with one of those old-fashioned, blacki cast-iron frying pans. Finally, I’m awakened at 11:30 p.m. by that all-too-familiar indescribable agony in my right eyeball.
I had never even heard of Verapamil till I found this board and, by that time, The Cluster Demon had more control over my life than I have over my cats. So, I have no idea whether the Verapamil would have shut down the the cluster attacks if I had started to take it at the weird-toothache stage. It was my primary-care physician who prescribed the Verapamil. The neurologist clearly knew a cluster attack when he saw one, but that seemed to be the extent of his expertise.
I’ve been having cluster attacks since I was nineteen. I’m now 62.