Long Polling with REST

I have set up long polling (comet programming) within Azure workers to test a messaging system I'm developing. It seems to work fine. However when I move the client outside Azure and use Node.js it's timing out after 230 seconds. I've found that Azure is closing the connection due to http inactivity. Is there anyway I can extend this timeout? Alternatively is there a different method by which I can connect Node.js to a Service Bus and wait for a message for several hours? Could such a connection be made without using Http for example? I have been researching this for several days to no avail and would appreciate definitive information so I can work out a periodic loop prioritised for peak time. An always connected long poll would be preferable.

Thanks.