fatfecker

Why does american chocolate taste so bad compared to european?

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Fellow sufferer here, thankfully I am only episodic and tend to get hit for about 4-5 weeks twice a year.

I adore the NHS too, They give me as much O2 as I want and getting the empties swapped out is easily arranged, I also have a large stockpile of imigran injections as the oxygen isn't particularly portable (I sometimes have to get the train to work) and until my headaches settle into a pattern they can be a little unpredictable.

After a week or 2 of dicking about they eventually settle into a pattern of usually 3 headaches/day for another couple of weeks but they will start at the same time each day (normally to the minute) which makes planning for them easier, I usually get hit at 9:15am, 12:30pm and 4:30am. The 4:30am one will wake me up and really messes up my sleep patterns.

Whilst I am in the episode I can't have any alcohol without triggering a cluster (within about 5 minutes of drinking) but I haven't found any other triggers.

Treating them is quite straight forward with the oxygen and I usually don't need the injections if I catch them early enough, if I do use the injections then they take 6 minutes to kick in and the feeling you get when the drug reaches your brain is unbelievable, it's like someone has just reached a cold hand into your brain and slowly dragged the pain away, 8 minutes after an injection I am up and about instead of writhing in pain. After using the imigran I feel a bit strange though, it's like having a headache without the pain, it's very difficult to explain but I feel a bit dumb and have to really concentrate to do relatively simple things. While I'm suffering from a headache I go very pale and my sinuses become blocked but my colour and sinuses return to normal once the headache has gone.

My employer is very good about my headaches and my morning attack tends to hit around 9:15am so I just stay home until it is gone and turn up late each morning and they are fine with it.

A good thing about me getting cluster headaches is my pain tolerance is second to none, I don't bother with aneasthetic anymore when getting any dental work and have broken bones and laughed about it. Oh and if you take too much imigran it turns your blood green and you can pretend you are the incredible hulk :)