By Mia Maysack, PNN Columnist

Recently I chose to step away from one of the last support group forums I belonged to because it continually felt less than supportive.

“Pain is pain” may be the motto of our community, yet there are persistent comparisons that consistently belittle someone’s reality in some shape or form. It’s like a competition to see who has the most pain.

To serve as one example, “cluster migraine” is not a scientific term, though it is a phrase I use to convey the type of pain that I feel -- an inclusion of multiple beasts (chronic migraine, cluster headache and fibromyalgia) that are not to be confused as the same or even similar, but co-exist within me nonetheless.

There's no doubt that cluster headache is one of the most excruciating conditions known to humankind. If you haven’t gone through it -- there is no possible way to fully comprehend it. This does not mean that migraine is any less valid or any less painful.