Posted by gary (208.133.217.209) on December 29, 1999 at 15:19:46:
In Reply to: Visiting the neurologist... posted by Todd Owen on December 29, 1999 at 11:25:50:
I'm probably reading your post wrong if so,
hang in there,
understand that I am trying to help -
if you DO have CH you need to read ALL the info thru links at left before getting too much heavier into multiple strong neds
if you DON'T have CH, you are only hurting yourself by tryoing to treat it as such
but would suggest you don't get carried away piling too many meds on all at once - with CH that usually seems to make things worse instead of better, quite predictably-
when we do that and find relief it USUALLY isn't the result of the combination, but the result of the last med we took - an IMPORTANT consideration
if I AM reading you right-
you're talking about a MANY hours long attack of sustained and increasing pain,
in which case you really want your neurologist to check into other possible reasons for your problem; that is pretty near an absolute "NOT CH" indicator
also I fully concur -
no matter what "scale" you use,
in cluster headache NOBODY is going to sleep, or stay asleep, if their attack gets much worse than 15% or 20% of its maximum potential
so, if you're saying you can sleep - at all - with your pain at or near 90% of the worst it's ever been (which is what a 9 would be, no matter what the descriptive details used)
then I can assure you - you're not dealing with CH - at least not ONLY CH - UNLESS they have drugged you so heavily you are actually fully anesthetized - and it doesn't sound like that either, if you made it home from Urgent care before going to sleep
apparently some people have CH AND migraines,
and this may be you-
which is a real bummer,
but STILL needs to be sorted out
because the diseases (and predictably effective treatments) are notably different