{"id":101,"date":"2009-02-28T23:52:53","date_gmt":"2009-03-01T04:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/?p=101"},"modified":"2009-02-28T23:52:53","modified_gmt":"2009-03-01T04:52:53","slug":"the-cluster-of-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/2009\/02\/28\/the-cluster-of-2009\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cluster of 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Around Christmas late last year I started into a cluster cycle of headaches. It\u2019s been a long while since I wrote about these so I\u2019ll retell my tale of the pain in the brain. <a title=\"Wikipedia - Opens in new window\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cluster_headache\" target=\"_blank\">Cluster Headache<\/a> is in the migraine family. A typical day in the life of a Clusterati has me feeling a little strange about 3 hours after waking up and then spending 15 to 30 minutes with a serious headache isolated exclusively on the left side of my head. Unlike a regular headache the pain is sharp and constant. My left eye waters, I get extra sensitive to\u2026 pretty much everything &amp; once in a while it\u2019s enough to give me the classic migraine nausea. Once in a while they\u2019ll just cease but they usually peter out after several minutes. Often, I\u2019ll be due for another episode 3-4 hours later and then done for the day. This is the largest thing that separates them from standard migraine. They seem to be directly tied to the circadian rhythms AKA, your sleep cycles. This particular cycle was a little out of the ordinary in that I was frequently getting them in the evening and twice in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">It\u2019s been a week now since I had a full-blown attack so I\u2019m definitely coming out of this cluster pattern. This is the other defining factor and where Cluster Headaches get their name. They come in groups over a few months and then completely vanish for as much as a year or two. My current cycle will have lasted almost exactly two months, which is on the short side, but I\u2019m certainly not complaining.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Due to the quick onset &amp; (hopefully) rapid departure of the pains, taking medication isn\u2019t really a solution. A few times in the past 2 months I had dull (for clusters) headache that just lasted all day. In those cases 12-hour pain caps took the edge off but for most of the days there\u2019s just nothing you can take that will do more than slowly make you immune to the pain dampener. The only thing I\u2019ve found that can truly beat down a cluster headache in full swing is a terrific rush of endorphins &amp; adrenaline. If I\u2019m at home I\u2019ll hit the basement where we store the free weights. If I\u2019m out and about I\u2019ll do a few wind sprints. If I\u2019m at the office \u2013 and this is where the headaches most frequently occur \u2013 there\u2019s not much I can do. While working in New York I used to take a walk to the stairway and knock off a few dozen flights. 10 down and 16 back up followed by a walk on the roof usually did the trick. The panic inducing vertigo of looking down 16 stories onto the streets of Manhattan sometimes provided the finishing touch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The correlation between circadian rhythms and exercise beating the pain is something of a mystery to me but I can see that getting the blood flowing &amp; opening up the capillaries in my head is the solution. Now I just need my current employer to put in an additional 15 stories of building.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Around Christmas late last year I started into a cluster cycle of headaches. It\u2019s been a long while since I wrote about these so I\u2019ll retell my tale of the pain in the brain. Cluster Headache is in the migraine family. A typical day in the life of a Clusterati has me feeling a little [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102,"href":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions\/102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ericles.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}