I use tattoos as pain management. While I’m being tattooed, as I mentioned, I’ve often nearly fallen asleep as the scratching becomes more noticeable than my headache. And during the weeks after as I’m healing, I have something else to focus on for once.

1. Don’t scratch your new tattoos.
2. Moisturize.
3. Don’t. Pick at it. Spray it with Bactine if it itches so much.

It’s easier to focus on that than how my head feels.

I have a bad habit of comparing my pain to a hypothetical injury that an entirely different person would be afflicted by. Brian Regan did a bit in his standup about this kind of thing. It involved him comparing his pain levels against first childbirth, then having your femur get cracked in half, then childbirth with a broken femur, and eventually saying “eight” on the pain scale because that one feels “safe”.

It’s a hard kind of mindset to overcome. Especially since I have such a high pain tolerance.

I don’t know if I’ve ever been pain free.

Headaches, tinnitus, knee pain (thanks to platelet-rich plasma therapy, that’s gone), back pain…

I don’t remember what it feels like to not have a headache. Which is annoying, because I don’t recognize what it feels like to feel better.

I do well from five in the morning to about ten, but the pain starts to distract me after that.

The worst pain comes from the cluster headaches. They’re triggered by light and can often knock me off balance if I’m upright when they happen. It’s a sharp, stinging pain that comes on suddenly—like an ice pick to the temple. I’ve been told that I look like I’m being punched by a ghost when I get a cluster headache. They’re why I spend most of my time in the dark. I don’t get them when I’m in my room with all the lights out.

I’ve gone through so many different pain medications. Vicodin helped. Vicodin was also the pain reliever my neurologist wasn’t “comfortable” prescribing me, so I’ve never been able to take it again.

I’m currently vaping delta-8 for pain relief and the fact that it gives me the munchies. I have no appetite, but cannabis makes me have cravings, so I’m eating more or less normally. I’ve lost a lot of weight and I’m pretty sure the only reason I haven’t lost more is because of the munchies.