★★★★★
I have cluster headaches. They are no fun. The first one I had would not go away and continued to worsen until I was being sick to the stomach. I found myself in a fetal position trying to rock the pain away. Something told me to run. I ran as hard as I could until I physically could not anymore. I collapsed gasping for air. My heart was beating so fast that I had to get up and walk it down which took longer than the run did. Immediately, the pain started fading. I out run them every time since then. It was years later that I learned of cluster headaches and heard there wasn't anything to do for them. I said, "I run until I can't anymore and they go away."
I asked a doctor in passing about that. He agreed there was nothing that could be done. But when I told him about my running he said I was raising my heart rate to the point that a chemical reaction was producing the equivalent of Morphine and the gasping for air was saturating my oxygen level. He said doing that would surely work. Still today, when I have a cluster headache, I RUN, AND RUN, AND RUN. It still works for me.
But I must say, there is no stopping short of nearing a heart attack from the running. I had a cluster headache last month and attempted to run it out. I thought I had run hard enough, but hadn't. It continued to worsen and I could no longer drive. So I found myself running laps around the KMART parking lot in the town I was passing through. I don't know what I will do when I get too old to run that hard but dying of a heart attack is almost more inviting than dealing with cluster headaches. That's my story and self cure.
