Yesterday I talked to my doctor – well, not my doctor, but an intern working at her practice – and explained that I suffer from cluster headaches. I told him that sometimes I pass out from the pain and that I used to have a pen-injector with fast-acting painkillers that allowed me to, say, park my car alongside the road. He did some of the standard tests, checking my hearing, my eyes, and the muscles and nerves in my face before he prescribed me an “attack medicine,” predominantly used against migraine attacks. It’s a nasal spray with Sumatriptan. I picked it up from the apothecary this morning. In the brochure it says that it’s meant for migraine attacks – attacks in which too much blood rushes too the brain due to dilated arteries – and it specifically states that if you suffer from other headaches you shouldn’t take this medicine. I don’t suffer from migraine attacks, so most likely my arteries aren’t dilated. Who knows what this stuff will do if I take it. I’m going to have to call this guy to talk it over. Also, apparently it’s supposed to work within fifteen to thirty minutes, which is way too long. I just want something to stop the pain, or at least make it manageable enough for me not to pass out, which certainly doesn’t happen all the time, but still.
While I was talking to the doctor, I realised something; the reason I pass out is not because of the pain – it’s actually quite uncommon for people to pass out from cluster headaches – but more because, depending on the circumstances, I get assaulted by an acute panic attack. If I’m in a public place, or if it’s the first attack in a cluster – basically anything unexpected, I start panicking, and then I eventually pass out.
Fuck, I really hoped that this wouldn’t happen again. The remission time was really very long; seven years, I think. The first time was right before the first Bulldrek Gathering, so perhaps eight, I forget. The last attack in the cluster was in California, at Eva’s place in Sunnyvale. I had another attack several years later, but that was just one attack, and could’ve been something else, I’m not sure. Even now, when I think of the inevitability of a next headache attack, I can feel my heart-rate go up and I feel my face flush.
Pain is temporary. Pain is temporary. Pain is temporary. Pain is temporary. Pain is temporary. Pain is temporary. Ad nauseum. Literally.