Posted by Lars on May 24, 1998 at 18:40:41:
Hello,
you all have probably read this kind of message more
than once here on this message board, but since I am
quite new to this disorder (if this is the right term
for it), I have to get this out to some people who can
understand me.
First of all I want to apologize for any bad english, but
I am german and this is not my native language :)
About a year and a half ago I woke up in the middle of
the night with a terrible pain behind my left eye and
while I lay there, it started to get worse.
When I finally wasn't able to ignore it and get back to
sleep, I got up and went to the bathroom. The light was
terrible to my left eye, but I managed to get a view in the
mirror. My eye was read and tears where runing down my
cheek. I got me some Aspirin (little did I know at that time)
and went back to bed. It took me about 2 1/2 hours to get
back to sleep, because the pain than started to cease to
a throbbing that could be ignored. All the time I had the
urge to pull my eye out to ease the pain.
The next morning the pain was gone but I was dead tired,
no wonder with staying up most of the night...
I had never heard of cluster headaches before, so I thought
nothing about it, just a pain that occured for some reason.
The next few nights all was ok, so I forgot about it.
Then the pain hit me again.
To make it short, I went to my Doctor after some attacks and
he checked me. All was ok, no infection or anything.
Even after I discribed the pain, he had no idea what was
wrong.
I went to another Doctor some weeks later, I do not know the proper
term for this kind of doctor (he does Throat, Nose and Eye treatment)
He didn't find anything. But he had my head x-rayed.
Still there was nothing to be seen.
I went to another docotor, doing treatments of the eye.
He looked into my eye and said, that I had an inflamation on
my left eye and he gave me a salve to put into it.
Well, it didn't get better.
After visiting my doctor again, he sent me for a CT with
contrast which revealed nothing. So he sent me for a
Magneto-Spectrum-something (I am not a doctor :)
They found nothing as well. So first of all I was happy,
because it was no tumor or something like that, but on
the other hand, I wished it would have been one, so I
would have known, what caused this terrible pain.
The neurologist who did the Magneto....examination told me
about cluster headaches (it was already December 1997 by now,
8 months since my first attack), but he said, I wouldn't
fit into it, because I got the attacks 3 to 4 times a week (during
the night) without a time with no headaches.
I went to my doctor again several times now and he gave me
a medicine for migraine that didn't work out.
I have been home now on sick note for three weeks because
the attacks come about 4 to 5 times a week and I am not
able to work because I can't concentrate during day and can't
sleep during the nights.
It has been only today that I found some information on the
internet about my headaches. I tried it in german first and
found only 7 sites on the net in german with 3 having the
same text and 4 being index-pages to some literature.
I am quite angry that the neurologist didn't think of the
option that the cluster headache could already be in a
chronical state and there would be no significant pause
between the attacks.
When I read all the information on the internet I really
felt so relieved, that there is some treatment after all,
that I nearly cried. Tomorrow I will have a talk with my
doctor and show him the information I found on the net.
Maybe I will not have to be afraid to go to bed anymore.
My best wishes to you and may you have untroubled nights,
Lars Wendt, Germany
PS: Why does the pain prefer to strike on weekends?