Its that time of year again where the weather is now turning very cold in the mornings and warming up in the day. Autumn is a very strange time of year with the weather and an extremely frustrating time of year when it comes to my condition and the cluster attacks. The early hours always wake me up with the cold bite on the top of the head as the temperature drops and suddenly the beast attacks. The same thing happens each time with the pain starting just above the jaw and below the left eye and then suddenly spreads upwards behind the eye and over the top of the left side of my head into the back of my neck. The attacks comes on so quickly you have no chance to prepare yourself and all you can do is either dive for your injection and pray it aborts the attack or just have to ride out the pain for over an hour each time. No matter how many hundreds and thousands of attacks i have had i still cant get used to them and they always feel as though they are stronger and a lot worst than the ones before. Having the cold weather as my main trigger makes life hell when winter comes and it always starts the same time each year just as the autumn morning chill arrives my attacks increase.
This yea we actually managed to get my attacks down to half what i normally get and having at least 2 or 3 days being attack free. This was great but unfortunately due to all the other health problems i have been having these days are no longer pain free days and if i am not suffering from cluster attacks i am suffering from pain from the hiatus hernia or the damaged nerve in my neck and down the left side of my back. This all topped of with severe pain across the lower back when i walk and up both of my legs. I have had a scan to see if there are blood clots and all those were clear and my circulation is fine. I have had tests on my heart due to severe chest pains and have been told the heart is fine but they are worried about my level of cholesterol and possibility of angina so i am now waiting for a heart scan and my next appointment with cardiology. The hernia and the problem when i eat and drink is becoming so bad and giving me so much pain each day its becoming a real problem but thankfully i have my appointment a week Tuesday so hopefully we will get something sorted or at least start treatment to help solve this issue.
I have had my MRI scan on the neck to fond out what is going on with the nerve and the pain i am getting down my back and the trouble when i walk but i have to wait for the results. I will no have to book an appointment with the doctor to find out what it is, the extent of the damage and what can be done to help ease all this pain all the time. I am very reluctant to start taking any kind of strong pain killer as i have been down that road before and it lead me into big problems but there is no way i can live my life with all this pain all the time. Cardiology was very concerned at the rate my heart is all the time due to pain and was discussing putting me on medication to slow the heart down as they said i just cant go on like this. Not that there is much i can do about it except wait for appointments and treatment. It just seems as soon as they find out what one thing is something else comes along and makes everything more difficult and harder to diagnose a problem. Ever since they started experimenting with different medications to get the clusters under control my health has rapidly gone down hill. I just wish for once i could catch a break.
