Cluster Headaches
Every
four to six years since my teenage years, I
have had bouts of cluster headaches that last about four to five hours per day
for about four to six weeks. Three weeks after returning to teach in China, whose
air
pollution was as bad as ever, I began
to get cluster headaches, which have no remedy and are also called
'suicide
headaches' because many in the midst of it commit suicide to stop the pain,
which is said to reach the highest level known in medicine. I wouldn't commit suicide
but understand how those who are not Christians could resort to it, as when in
the midst of cluster headaches, the overwhelming thought is doing something - anything - to
stop the pain.
This time, the cluster headaches occurred in the middle of the night and the only thing that helped was using the handset shower to run cold water on the left side of my head until it became numb. I went to bed, slept until awakened by the onset of cluster headache, then went to the bathroom and ran cold water on the left side of my head until it became numb, and then returned to bed. Within a few minutes, however, the left side of my head thawed and the pain returned, so I returned to the bathroom to repeat the cycle.
About a week after the onset of my cluster headaches, I tripped on the stairs while heading to a morning lecture, fell and broke a rib. There was hardly any pain when my torso was either vertical or horizontal. But when it was at any angle, which was required for me to lay down and get up from my bed, the pain was excruciating. Had someone been with me, having them support my back as I lay down on or get up from the bed would have lessened the pain and been accomplished relatively quickly. But since I was alone, it took me took me about forty minutes to move at a snail's pace to very slowly roll into or out of bed, and end up drenched in sweat. After numbing my head with the cold water, I ended up drying myself and trying to sleep while sitting on my chair so that I can be spared the forty minutes of feeling like my torso is being knifed to lay down, and then another forty minutes of it to get back up and return to the bathroom when my head thawed and began to pound again.