Posted by Alice (205.188.195.44) on August 13, 2001 at 12:57:51:
Hi everyone,
I found the clusterheadaches.com website last night. I'm two weeks into my first bout with CH and am looking for all the information I can on CH. The website is great and I've referred several of my friends and family to it already. It articulates more than I've been able to express to them thus far. I think I'm still in some sort of shock over realizing that head pains like this actually exist.
It's good to hear about those of you that are finding nondestructive ways of coping with the pain. The Kip Scale was awesome too. It corollated well with the pain scale I had already developed in my head. (0-5, I can be seen in public, 6-10, privacy absolutely necessary or I'll get hauled off to the funny farm.
Thus far I've found some respite from pain during attacks by utilizing ice, cold shower directly on the head (I aspirated some water though while gasping from pain), ice to the head and neck, and when able to sit still, found putting my feet in very hot (no, NOT BOILING) water and alternating heat and ice to the head and neck help. My husband helped me with this. Also, when the pain is between 4-6, I can drown out some of it by humming and singing.
I went to the ER during an attack last week and the pain from the Lumbar puncture the MD attempted (4 or 5 times) was great! It totally obfuscated the CH pain!I dunno if she believed me when I told her though. The Demerol shots didn't relieve it but did make it so I didn't care for an hour or so. My GP gave me some narcotic pain relievers which I've used with mixed results. I think they've been most effective to use during the shadow headaches I'm experiencing in between attacks. I tried O2 twice, once about 15 minutes into an attack and it helped- (went from 8 to 5) and another time an hour into an attack and it took me from (10 to 9). I'm not to interested in going from doctor to doctor but want to be able to cope with this while it lasts without adding to it by way of rx side effects. I used a laxative one day last week to deal with the constipation from the narcotics and enjoyed multiple headache attacks that day with a whole weeks worth of results from it. It was pretty challenging getting back and forth from the cold shower onto the hopper and back while not dropping my icepack and choking on the shower.
I've looked up in the PDR to find any analgesic that would work quickly enough to deal with this and can't find anything that works sooner than 10 or 20 minutes after administration. This is no good if the attack only lasts 45 minutes. I think only morphine would be strong enough to beat it anyway and having several youngsters around, don't want to go that route. Well, I'm learning as i go. Alice