Leaderboard

Well I didn't have any shadows yesterday at all so i was hopeful went I went to bed last night. I was actually looking forward to going to sleep instead of being terrified of it. Went to bed at 2am (I'm a late nighter) and wouldn't you know it at 5am I had to jump out of bed. The difference was this time it was because of my 61 year old bladder. Did my business and back to sleep. Woke back up at 10am this morning after another restful night other than the bladder call. I gotta tell you I am almost in tears right now. After 15 years of fighting the beast I've never had a break like this during a cycle. Hoping it continues. I did download the new D3 info and will look through it today. I also want to state for anyone reading this that I have been on this site for quite some time but never really post. However if it wasn't for this site and the information I've gained from it I may well be another reason they call CH suicide headaches. I've had cycles so bad that I've literally banged my head against the door jam to the point of bleeding just to try and focus the pain elsewhere. I thank God for this site and the people who work so hard for all of us who battle this beast and I thank God for the woman who has stood by me through all of the terrifying nights we've been through. So thank you to all of you from the bottom of my heart.

Hey Ceyron, We know what you're going through and most of us old timers like CHfather have the T-Shirts and coffee mugs from cluster headache conferences over the years to prove it. He's given you an excellent suggestion on using a freshly charged oxygen cylinder. It's also possible you're having a CGRP cascade triggered by an allergic reaction. When this happens, none of the standard CH interventions work effectively including oxygen. CHers are typically dehydrated so be sure to drink at least 2.5 liters of water a day. It also helps if you drink a glass of ice water with lots of ice through a straw at the first sign of an approaching CH. Drinking the ice water this way results in a mini brain freeze that chills the hard pallet and Sphenopalatine ganglia located in the back of the nasal cavity to trigger vasoconstriction, one of the key elements responsible for aborting CH. I've also sent you a PM that you'll need to discuss with your PCP or neurologist as it's very likely you're also vitamin D3 insufficient/deficient. You can download a copy of the anti-inflammatory regimen CH preventative treatment protocol at the following link at the VitaminDWiki web site. It will explain all this and more. http://www.vitamindwiki.com/tiki-download_wiki_attachment.php?attId=7708 Take care and please keep us posted. V/R, Batch

Hey Steve, Thanks for the reply and Jon, thanks for the kind words. Like you, I've had plenty of first-hand experience with Benadryl getting my CH back under control with the anti-inflammatory regimen... Steve, have you downloaded a copy of the latest version of the anti-inflammatory regimen? It contains a major section on the vitamin D3 loading schedules and allergies with the need for a first-generation antihistamine. An allergic reaction occurs when enough allergens reach a threshold and trigger mast cells to degranulate releasing histamine and a lot of other neuropeptides. The histamine, in turn, triggers neurons to express and release CGRP. If there's a lot of histamine, it triggers a major release of CGRP that turn around and trigger mast cells to release even more histamine. This becomes a circular chemical chain reaction causing a CGRP cascade. When this happens, none of the traditional CH interventions including vitamin D3 and oxygen will be effective. This circular chemical chain reaction continues until one or more of the reactants are consumed at which point the reaction stops and so does the CH... for now... As luck would have it our bodies recharge the mast cells with more histamine and neurons with the building blocks for more CGRP in roughly one or two hours which means the circular chain reactions is primed and ready to go again enabling the CH beast to jump ugly... Sound familiar? This is where the antihistamine comes into play. By blocking the H1 histamine receptors the antihistamine helps prevent the expression and release of CGRP and this enables vitamin D3 to do its thing to further down-regulate CGRP production and in the process prevent our CH. If you've been without Claritin for more than 24 hours, the allergens that triggered the initial allergy may have dissipated sufficiently... In any event, I'd keep the Claritin handy as we're surrounded by allergens 7X24. Take care and please keep us posted on your use of Claritin while taking the anti-inflammatory regimen. V/R, Batch Edited to add: Be sure to thank your wife for suggesting the Claritin. Tell her you love her and that her hair or shoes look nice... Wives like to hear things like this. We're usually in such a foul mood during a CH bout that wives keep their distance once they know we're doing something about the CH... Who knows... You might get lucky...