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Toni, it must be terrible for you to see your son in so much pain. In my opinion, I think you have done a beautiful job thinking about this and you have written about it very clearly. Sure sounds like clusters. I'm not sure how much difference a cluster headache diagnosis as opposed to migraine diagnosis will help with treatment at this point (except for oxygen, as I discuss below). From what I have read, only briefly, about diet and migraine, the same possible triggers to avoid, such as some cheeses, chocolate, nitrites, and MSG, also apply to CH. But those things generally only affect people with CH when they are in cycle -- they don't bring on cycles. I am skeptical of general dietary claims related to CH (and migraine). We have people with all sorts of relatively "pure" eating practices, who still get their CH cycles and attacks. Lately, a couple of folks have said they believe that a low-histamine diet helps them when they are in a CH cycle, and that does make sense for CH, since histamines are involved in CH. I guess all I'm saying is that an anti-migraine diet might also help with CH . . . or it might not make much difference, whether your son has migraines or CH. Of course, I have no idea what medications you son, or any ten-year-old, could use. Medically, some of the baseline treatments for CH are the same as the standard ones for migraine -- verapamil as a preventive and sumatriptan injections for aborting attacks. The major difference in treating CH is that inhaling pure oxygen is very effective to abort CH attacks, but not nearly as effective for migraine. If you could somehow get oxygen and have him try it as soon as an attack starts, you'd of course know whether it works and you'd have a good diagnostic indicator, too. You can see more about oxygen for CH here: https://clusterbusters.org/oxygen-information/ The "vitamin D3" regimen seems to help both people with CH and people with migraines. https://clusterbusters.org/forums/topic/1308-d3-regimen/ Just two last thoughts. (1) In some places, doctors seem to believe that there's such a thing as "cluster migraines." (I have to say that just anecdotally, this seems to be more true in the UK than it is in the US.) But there really isn't such a thing, so, yes, it is reasonable for you to assume that your doctors don't know what CH is. (2) I don't think that primary headache conditions like migraine and CH can be attributed to hitting one's head, although I suppose that if these started when he was five and that's when he hit his head, it could be more than coincidence. I'm just saying that it could be coincidence, it could not be coincidence (neither of which really matters to you since he has the condition now and it doesn't really matter what caused it), or it could be that there is something going on that was not detected on the MRI. I am the parent of a person with CH. My kid was older than yours when her attacks became serious, although I think she had them before she was two years old. It's tough to deal with, and I wish you the very best with finding a treatment that helps.

Beta waves are associated with being active and wakeful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_wave Your brain's electrical activity is emitted in cycles and is measured via EEG. The electrodes use conductive gel to carry that minute electrical current (measured in microvolts) into the computer. The waves your brain makes vary in frequency from about 0.5 cycles per second to 100 or so. Different frequency ranges are associated with different states of wakefulness. For example, Delta waves are the lowest frequency, up to 4Hz, and are seen in deep sleep. Theta, the next slowest are associated with deep meditation and near sleep. Alpha is present while awake and resting, and beta with being active. There are a few others, but their functions are more complex and deal with different cognitive states. Altered beta waves could be several different things. Beta waves are relatively symmetrical in amplitude between hemispheres (similar voltage recorded between electrodes), so maybe there was an asymmetry that is not normally present. Brainwaves also go through periods where the waves synchronize and desynchronize, so there could have been an abnormality in that. Probably some other possibilities that I'm not aware of. Who knows! I'm sure EEG technology has changed drastically since the 70s too. A couple drawbacks to EEG is there is very low spatial resolution, so you can only get an average of what's happening over a relatively large area of millions of neurons for each electrode. But there is great temporal resolution, or changes over time. Another drawback is that the readings are very prone to noise. Any movement, blinking, coughing, writing, etc. show up as noise on the waveform. That makes it more difficult to see what you are looking for. There have been some good advances though! Our new system uses a wireless transmitter to send the signal to a receiver on the computer, so the patient or participant can move freely about the room and perform a wider range of tasks. The software also has the ability now to remove noise from the recording, so unwanted blinks, for example can be removed when processing. I'm curious though to examine how a person's brainwaves vary during changes that are regulated by the hypothalamus. For example, the hypothalamus is important in regulating sleep, and releasing melatonin, as well as controlling the output of the pituitary gland. We know when a person is entering sleep due to a decrease in brainwave frequency. Is there an observable change in other aspects of brainwaves, such as symmetry or synchronization? Then, examining common triggers for CHs, do things like alcohol consumption or nicotine cause similar changes in brainwaves that may lead to an observable connection? Nothing may turn up, or may end up being useless info, but you don't know until you look.

I have a Costco about 10-15 minutes up the road from me, so that might work out perfectly. I don't have a membership, but I'd thought about getting one when it first opened. This might be a good reason to invest in a membership. Do you know if Batch has said what he usually pays for everything usually? I looked up the low histamine diet, and it looks like most of that stuff is food that I like to eat, so maybe I can incorporate a bit of that into an overall healthier diet (something I need to do anyway). Great idea! I'll ask him about it. It's probably a long shot. The hospital may have an issue with loaning a tank to a family member living 2 hours away. Worth a shot though! I'm glad that worked out for you and you were able to use it to your advantage when talking to your doctor. I'll be sure to post anything I can find!