Sinus/Cluster Headaches........

[bigscoop]

.....THEY SUCK! My labor pains are down to about every 2 or 3 hours so any day now I'm sure I'm going to giving birth to a third eye. I'm close, I know it. Last couple of times my sinuses broke water.

 

[onfire]

.....THEY SUCK! My labor pains are down to about every 2 or 3 hours so any day now I'm sure I'm going to giving birth to a third eye. I'm close, I know it. Last couple of times my sinuses broke water.

it all starts in the neck ..get it cracked.

 

[FarmerChick]

OH MAN I AM right there with you. THEY are deadly. The pressure is insanity. The back of the neck, the eye pressure, the woozy if you bend over or turn fast. UGH Nothing much helps me. BUT good thing most times they aren't life threatening, they just feel like they are!!!

HOPE YOU FEEL BETTER SOON! DARK ROOM, CLOSE EYES, SLEEP AND PRAY when you wake you feel great

 

[bigscoop]

Steal plate and screws in my neck.......ain't nobody gonna crack that!

I've had these off and on since I was about 18, seem to come in cycles every few years or so. Been to all the headache clinics, etc. They are clueless? Keep telling me I'm suffering from pain of the head. Seem to come with weather fronts during the seasonal changes, spring & fall, the quicker changes in pressure triggering them. Yesterday I had five attacks, last night I had three, and so far today just two, but night still awaits. Once the weather becomes stable they'll go away.

 

[bigscoop]

OH MAN I AM right there with you. THEY are deadly. The pressure is insanity. The back of the neck, the eye pressure, the woozy if you bend over or turn fast. UGH Nothing much helps me. BUT good thing most times they aren't life threatening, they just feel like they are!!!

HOPE YOU FEEL BETTER SOON! DARK ROOM, CLOSE EYES, SLEEP AND PRAY when you wake you feel great

NO WAY could I sleep. When they get real bad I become a walker, with an ice pack in one hand, a heat pack in the other, and pockets full of tissues. Sometimes the shower, alternating hot and cold. But these are really just distractions with moments of false comfort. I've always said that everybody should have just one day of them, makes you really appreciate those days when you can function, think, and see.

 

[FarmerChick]

no way to sleep. ugh then you just misery thru it.

for me, what I do and it seems to work, is massage my neck myself. I lay down in a dark room (after taking about 50 meds, like Tylenol Severe Sinus, then the Alka Seltzer Sinus, which is pretty good actually and whatever else I might have available. (YES I overdose and I don't care )

If hubby is around I get the neck massage from him. IF on my own I just start kneading my left shoulder and into my neck and relax. then I roll over on my side and do the same to the other side. HONESTLY I am not kidding, it works.

I think when the headaches are severe you 'scrunch up every muscle' in your neck/shoulder/top back area. The little massage seems to cut that tension.

but that is me! believe me over the years I have tried a million ways to help myself. this one helps. I do end up sleeping a bit after that tension goes (most times)

ice pack never helped me one bit for some reason. feels comforting tho

 

[Dave44]

Have you tried the sinus rinse? My allergist recommends it, and before that when I was in Hawaii the locals recommended swimming in the ocean and letting it get in your sinuses.

As a disclaimer, I am not sure I like it when the problems first start, It makes it worse for me. But a consistent usage works very well( I say every 3 days).

One more thing,, do not Push it through too hard. Better yet follow directions and I am not responsible for any crap I recommend!

But it really gets things moving out.

Good luck Scoop!

 

[bigscoop]

I use to press up against the door knob and use it to massage that area tight around the shoulder blade, sometimes that would help.

Dave, I have a sinus rinse and I was using it "a lot" in the beginning and it seemed to help, but once the monsters start in it has no effect. It's really strange how these headaches progress and cycle. Usually it all begins with very minor headaches, maybe a few days apart. But they always progress in volume and in severity, and it seems the more you do to try to stop or break the cycle the worse the next one will be. I'm sure some of it has to do with tension and anticipation because they actually get so bad and so frequent you're afraid to leave home or to even go to sleep. The ones that hit you at night are the worst because they are already ahead of you by the time you wake up to them. And then one day, just like that they are gone and I may not have them again for, well, it's been about three years this time around. I can remember once, when they were at their peak a few years back, I was living in the country and it was 10 degrees outside and I went outside in my underwear and stuck my head in the snow crying like a little kid. No kidding. I went to a clinic once where they teach you to lay flat on your back, arms and legs spread out in very relaxed fashion, and instead of fighting the pain they teach you to relax and follow the pain, like tracing lightening bolts shooting through your head, cheeks, eye sockets, jaws, etc. It's quite an experience though to this day I still can't understand what the point was? But I will say this, the pain was still there without all the tension, so maybe that was the concept? Either way it was still extremely punishing.

 

[Red James Cash]

My brother gets the cluster headaches,they make sinus headaches seem like a picnic.Theyre either from agent orange or when he was 18 he got jumped by a bunch of collage kids and got whacked across the forehead with a tire iron.He sometimes has to go to the hospital because of them and get a shot of morphine.

 

[Crispin]

If the pain is neuropathic from the plates then cymbalta up to 120mg could be really helpful. Topamax is hit or miss but mostly miss. Amitriptyline 25mg I've seen work miracles. Avoid any narcotics or barbiturates...they will just make it worse.

 

[bigscoop]

My brother gets the cluster headaches,they make sinus headaches seem like a picnic.Theyre either from agent orange or when he was 18 he got jumped by a bunch of collage kids and got whacked across the forehead with a tire iron.He sometimes has to go to the hospital because of them and get a shot of morphine.

I've often wondered about a prior head injury of some type being the root cause, maybe some crushed blood vessels somewhere? Lord knows I took my share of shots when I was younger. Last time I heard, some forms of cluster headaches are still a bit of a mystery. I've often wondered if they might not be from a chemical deficiency of some type, something that only comes about, or possibly builds up, every so often?

 

[bigscoop]

If the pain is neuropathic from the plates then cymbalta up to 120mg could be really helpful. Topamax is hit or miss but mostly miss. Amitriptyline 25mg I've seen work miracles. Avoid any narcotics or barbiturates...they will just make it worse.

Odd you would mention that......when I was younger I used eat Excedrin like it was candy thinking it was eventually helping. WRONG! Was only compounding the problem.

 

[Red James Cash]

His come and go.He could be fine for up to a year then they start and last for a month or so and then go away again.Only to start repeating.His doctors dont know anything about it,not that V.A. doctors give a damn anyway.

 

[bigscoop]

Hey Chick, see if you can relate.......

Sometimes after a major headache I find myself in this super, near perfectly relaxed state. Not tired or sleepy, just super relaxed with the instincts and senses of a cat. A state of complete calm. (At least that's the way I feel sometimes.)

Or, sometimes after a real crusher I'll feel like I'm on an adrenaline rush for a short while, like I could built two sets of full scale twin towers from scratch all by myself in an hour. But then of course, a short time later I crash and burn like a limp piece of thread.

Hunger! Get out of my way or I'll eat you right along with that entire cow over there.

And my least favorite......"so much as talk to me and you're dead!"

 

[bigscoop]

His come and go.He could be fine for up to a year then they start and last for a month or so and then go away again.Only to start repeating.His doctors dont know anything about it,not that V.A. doctors give a damn anyway.

Yep. Same type thing here. But I gotta tell you, over the years I've been to some pretty "credited" places and they were still pretty much miffed. My favorite diagnosis was, "cepheladyna" (I'm sure I spelled that wrong) but anyway it's a medical term that means, "pain of the head". Like I didn't already know that much. When I first heard it I thought I had contracted an STD. Was married at the time and you should have seen the instant fire in her eyes when she heard it!

 

[Red James Cash]

That sucks Bigscoop,I do feel for yeah.i know what you go through because i know what my brother goes through.

 

[kiana7]

Awe,praying for you to get better or find some comfort,God Heal big scoop from his sinus headaches in Jesus name,Amen,,HH

 

[bigscoop]

In a way, I'm kinda glad to have experienced them. Sounds crazy, I know, but.....I think they have made me a lot more tolerant, and not just with pain, if that makes any sense? Hard to explain, but I do appreciate what having them has taught me about life in general. So even on the bad days, they're still good days. Someone in a rage once called me, "too passive" and I said, "I can live with that".

 

[FarmerChick]

I think I am getting different than you. I don't get 'headaches' like you are describing. I get the dull throb, but I am mainly tons and tons of pressure in the face and neck. Mine are really sinus related. My eyes 'see and feel' funny but my hubby gets the migranes. He says he sees spots sometimes. I don't have that. It can last for days or hours. They come on like a flash also. Fine one minute, next minute suffering to the max.

after a bad bout I am dragging, sleepy, wore out and feel drained. (Might be the million meds I have taken)

 

[bigscoop]

I think I am getting different than you. I don't get 'headaches' like you are describing. I get the dull throb, but I am mainly tons and tons of pressure in the face and neck. Mine are really sinus related. My eyes 'see and feel' funny but my hubby gets the migranes. He says he sees spots sometimes. I don't have that. It can last for days or hours. They come on like a flash also. Fine one minute, next minute suffering to the max.

after a bad bout I am dragging, sleepy, wore out and feel drained. (Might be the million meds I have taken)

If they are truly sinus related try this....will stop them from getting bad and really shorten them. Take a clean tissue and roll the end of it into a very fine point a couple of inches long. Now this is kind of gross, but it works. As soon as you feel the headache coming on stick this up your nose until you feel it tickling those tiny follicles that make you sneeze. Here's what happens......as we age some of us lose the required sensitivity in these follicles for one reason or another which is important. When we sneeze our sinuses and tear ducts open up and purge/flush themselves, without this natural release they will continue to build pressure, often becoming very dry and swelled. So in essence, you want to tickle these until you sneeze and you'll be amazed at how fast your sinuses and tear ducts will open and pour, thus releasing/flushing the pressure it is failing to do naturally. May take two or three good sneezes/releases but I promise you you'll notice immediate relief. This same tactic will even stop my headaches from getting too bad and shorten duration if I can do this soon enough. Like I said, the real crushers usually come at night, or when I'm just to busy during the day to take the time out to address them as soon as I get the sense that one is on the way. Sounds nuts, but it works most of the time.