Migraines (and what you do when you have them)

[Baalzamon]

archbrix said:
Sorry to hear that. I suffer from cluster headaches so I sympathize. They're the least common of headaches, affecting less than 1/1000 people and have been documented as the single most painful condition known to medical science. Your symptoms sound different, though, since clusters don't last for days (the cycle does but the actual headaches don't) and only hurt on on side of the face behind the eye. Doesn't really matter if the room is bright or if there's loud noise, etc. When a cluster headache hits, you're going to be suffering no matter what for anywhere from 5 minutes to 3 hours.

I've never had blurry vision or hallucinations during clusters but the dizzy/vomiting feeling is present when they're really bad. There is sweating, shortness of breath - there's been moments where it really feels like I could die. They're easily the most horrible experience I've ever had in my life, without question. The only medical treatments for clusters are prescription drugs called sumatriptans or straight oxygen via a mask and tank.

Anyhow, an ice pack on my face is the only way to help alleviate my pain when I have a cluster but other headaches/migraines feel better with heat packs instead.

Last time I had this headache, they put me on 800mg ibuprofen, hydrocodine, and amitriptyline. All at the same time, these did absolutely nothing :/

I'm just on some hydrocodine at the moment, if for nothing but to make me know I'm at least trying to get rid of it, even though it probably won't help.

In all my research of headaches, I've definitely heard of cluster headaches, and feel incredibly bad for the people who have them. I've seen things that when they hit, rather than resting, some have to resort to getting up and walking back and forth because the pain is so bad.

Oh, also, I've felt it minutely a couple times already today, but while the headache itself is just a bad throbbing headache, the worst of the pain for this headache (or at least the last time I had it) came in about 5-30 second tingling "sensations" in the back of my head. They would put me right down, and happen anywhere from hardly at all to a few times per hour.