Posted by Shannon (209.12.6.218) on August 07, 2000 at 17:16:21:
I am still trying to figure out if what I am having is really what I was diagnoised with. For the last month I have been comming to this message board and reading all of the posts and posting myself and I am starting to doubt this is really what I have. Right now for instance I just started having a tightness behind my right eye (same place everytime) and then it feels like someone is jabbing a needle thru the tightness. The best way I can give you a visual of this is take a rubber band and a needle and pull on the rubber band until taught and then jab the end of the needle thru a spot on the rubber band. Then I start to get a wave of pain go thru the top right portion of my head, and it continues to move in a wave until it finally settles in, my vision gets blurry in that eye and I want to tilt my head to the side that hurts. For right now though it has stayed at about a 2-3 on MY pain scale for about 30 min, meds come at my pain scale 9, sometimes they just go away by themselves, mysteriously and sometimes they fluctuate in pain level, 3to 5 to 2 to 7 to 1 it is really odd. I have discussed all of this with my DR. and he still thinks that I have CH. Now from what I have read some of this does sound like cluster headaches ( I have the droopy eye and tearing), but why I am wondering if it really is or isn't is I have never had one so bad that I would want to bang my head (my head hurts so bad would not want to do anything else that could bring on pain)or think of ending my life, I do not dread the onset of another attack, I don't even think about it again until it happens. For the last 2 days I have only had one a day around 4:00pm, before about 4 a day with a constant all day, I also have never been woken up by them. Imitrex and Midrain work to make the pain go away. I guess I have just read all of these terrible stories and realize that more than half of this has not happened to me, so I feel almost bad for taking up time on this board asking questions if I really do not have cluster headaches. Maybe and this is a question, could it be that since this is my first ever episode with CH and about 2 months into headaches (with no history) that it really is CH but not as bad because I am a new suffer and they get worse with time (question for all of you veterans), or that they just affect everyone differently, or that they are starting to go away? Sorry for the lengthy message, I want to thank you in advance for your input.