For a short while I thought I had got off lightly this year having so few attacks and the winter being so mild. Like most of the country I wasn’t expecting such bad weather to suddenly hit us and when we had the first lot of snow my life suddenly became hell. The attacks started from the first day of the cold weather and just didn’t let up. I was experiencing what I call “shotgun attacks”. These attacks come in bouts of 2 at a time. You have the first attack and depending on if you take your injection or not have to ride it out only to get the second attack kick in roughly 5 top 10 minuets after the first one. Even after you take an injection and it aborts the first attack you think you will be ok for a while but it still happens and the second attack appears.
Being a chronic sufferer is testing at the best of times but this latest bout of attacks reminded me why this condition is one of the worst known to human kind. You sometimes forget just how strong pain can get at times and after several attacks you realise just how much it takes out of you each time. At the start of the day you feel energetic and ready to face what to day brings and by the end of it, after experiencing 6 to 8 attacks you wish for peace to come and an end to the attacks. I understand more now than ever before why they call them “suicide headaches”. It bad enough someone should end up in the mind set that they want to end their life but when your having an attack all you can think about is stopping the pain and everything crosses your mind including death. I do sometimes wonder just how many people who have been miss-diagnosed or suffer in silence with the same condition experiencing the same attacks. If I hadn’t of known what was happening to me and that the pain will eventually stop and hadn’t been educated about the condition I really don’t think I would be here today.
Now the second lot of snow has hit us and we are experiencing the worst winter for quite a while the attacks have returned but thankfully no where near as bad as the last lot and I have found them manageable. The cold is defiantly what is triggering the attacks and even though you try your best to keep warm and stay indoors the weather still manages to have an effect on you. My heart goes out to the other cluster sufferers during this weather as I know what they could be going through and just how bad it can get. All you can do is try and keep a positive mind and remind yourself the attacks will eventually end and you will get a break but its easy to say that now when not having the attack. Thank god the nasty cold weather isn’t going to be around as long as the last lot and we should see a change ion the weather and everything start warming up within the next week or so.
