Posted by K-Man (216.168.75.178) on August 15, 2000 at 20:29:11:
This page and you people are a godsend! I've been having episodic clusters for 16 years and just began another cycle last Friday. There has never been anything on the web like this.
Today was a rough headache day at my relatively new firm (a two hour cluster attack). On the floor and writhing in pain. My boss had no idea what I was talking about when I referred to the intense and unbearable pain. From a headache? Please. I guess you can't blame him. It sounds really far-fetched. Especially since only two hours after the attack I'm back at work like normal. (Ironically, I'm a headhunter by occupation.)
This is going to sound strange to most of you, but one non-drug treatment I've tried is an ancient Chinese meditation exercise called Chi Kung (also spelled Qi Gong). It is very closely related to acupuncture and can help to prevent the headaches from occurring at all. At times if I catch the headache during the aura period, I can use the techniques to abort the headache completely. Sometimes the headache is too severe to stop, so the only option is drugs. I recently traveled to Shanghai, China and learned these Chi Kung techniques from an old Tai Chi master. I also study similar techniques with a Chinese Tai Chi master here in the U.S. Like I said, this sounds crazy, but it helps a great deal. When you get desperate enough you may decide you want to try it.