November 5, 2005 :: 8 p.m.

Still have a headache.

Sometimes I get these... I call them "long and low." I don't think it's very typical of clusters. I read people describing "shadows" but this seems different to me.

It's like a spring... in a normal cluster the spring gets compressed very quickly. In one of these, the spring gets compressed very slowly and not that much. Like the pumping of an accordion. They hover around a 1-2 and can last for a very long time.

I hesitate to even describe them because I don't feel like defending against the people that would suggest that they are not cluster headaches... The "Kings of Pain" don't take kindly to any murkiness in their condition, or at least that is my experience.

I know that I don't have them as badly as some people and that makes me ashamed sometimes. What right do I have to complain when at worst I get 2 or 3 bad ones a day over the course of 6-12 weeks and really I would say during the few weeks at the beginning and the few weeks at the end it'ss mostly just one a night.

The "long and low" thing is relatively new, just the last few years. I was hoping that it meant that they were "changing" and that the screaming 8-10 "beg for death" attacks were going to stop... but that doesn't seem to be the case.

In case anyone reads this and is tempted to reply with the "clusters don't last long so you don't have clusters" dogma, please take a moment to consider:

1. These are rare in me. Most of my attacks are typical "textbook" cluster attacks.
2. Nothing in nature is EVER completely uniform... variation is the order of the day.
3. If I do have something that's most of the time exactly like clusters but is rarely a bit different, then what the hell does it matter?