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I have to comment on this part having gone through well over 20 meds myself. Lots of the "old timers" who have been around for decades and have gone through a bit more rough treatments for CH are ready for anything and are ready to pay any price named. But I don't think that's fair for the young folks. For verapamil the impact may be small - for many anything is small that includes surviving and staying alive - but what if even the little one is avoidable. We have a finnish patient group sized 1300 people at the moment and many people who are not even at their twenties yet arrive and join our group and have had to give up a sports hobby for an example due to verapamil. They learn of anti-inflammatory regimen and if they're lucky will avoid further heart issues, discontinue verapamil and seek safer options. That's also the reason why I am still writing in the internet; I hope that one day all patients would have all the options laid out for them and they could pick the most effective and least potential to cause any size of negative impact later on in life out of all these options. First. It's a long way until we're there though. In large sized groups that have gone on long enough, certain side effects are associated to the same drugs over, over, over and over again. What makes it difficult is that they won't happen to everyone but there are certainly things that should be avoided (if there is another option to something).

Can you be more specific about what your micro-dosing approach has been?

I had this problem as well but in mine case, magic mushrooms have helped a lot! Micro-dosing cure mine!

Great advice from F'T' and Freud. OXYGEN can't be overemphasized. It's the real lifesaver. If you can't get a prescription, you can do as many do and create your own system using welding oxygen. For most people with CH who have done the vitamin D3 regimen, it has been effective at stopping cycles, reducing severity of attacks, and preventing future cycles (though not right away -- it can take a few weeks, although for a small number of people it's faster). http://www.vitamindwiki.com/tiki-download_wiki_attachment.php?attId=7708 Often, a good doctor (and I would say emphatically that you do not have one, given what was prescribed to you) might use a steroid taper (prednisone, usually). In some cases, it will stop a cycle, but in most cases it gives pain relief for a few days before the cycle comes back as you are tapering off the steroid. You can use those few days to jump start the D3 regimen, or to use the commonly prescribed preventive, verapamil, which takes time to get into your system enough to be effective. Regarding "busting" with shrooms or seeds (or L S D), read the numbered files in the ClusterBuster Files section of the board. You might find other things that will help you as you read the other files in that section. The "triggers" document, for example, has been helpful to some people. Also, because CH is often flared up by allergies, even ones you don't know you have, consider taking Benadryl 4 times a day, 25 mg 3 times, and then 50 mg at night. It's a lot, but it can help. Some people find that melatonin at night, starting at about 9mg and working up as needed, helps. Melatonin is an important chemical (hormone??) that is low in people with CH. NOT recommended to take both Benadryl and melatonin at night.

Tips on helping abort the cluster. First thing you will want to start working on today is getting a script from your doctor for high flow oxygen at 15-25lps with a non rebreather mask. things you can "do at home" are down a 5hr energy drink at the first sign of the pain. drink ice water with a straw pointed at the roof of your mouth on the cluster side to kind of freeze it out. put your feet in hot water, as hot as you can take it. down strong coffee, this is kind of like the 5hr energy drink thing. chew on fresh ginger. pushups, jumping jacks or some other kind of exercise sometimes helps. just a quick few things I hear of that have helped people in the past. I have tried just about all and sometimes they help and some times they do not. Every attack is different and you will need to try a few things for some attacks before something helps it. But the one thing that works best for me is the pure oxygen. between that and 5hr energy drinks I do not use triptans (Imitrex) but maybe once a month if things get real bad. Also look into getting Imitrex shots, they will abort in about 5 minutes. the pills take much longer. Take your time and read up on this site and a tun of help will come your way.

Just realized that the forums 9th Birthday slipped by me last week!! The board went live October 27th of 2009 with just a handful of active members the first few months!! What a long way we've come since those early days! So, a belated Happy Birthday to the Clusterbusters forum and a big Thank you to BobW and DJ for giving us this space! Dallas Denny

Brendan, You're more than likely vitamin D3 deficient and that deficiency is contributing to the frequency, severity and duration of your CH. You need the lab test of your serum 25(OH)D. This is the serum level metabolite of vitamin D3 that's used to measure its status. The normal reference range for the 25(OH)D lab test is 30 to 100 ng/mL. As CHers, we need to keep our serum 25(OH)D up around 80 ng/mL and sometimes higher to prevent CH or significantly reduce its frequency. Unfortunately most physicians will interpret the result of this lab test as normal with a 25(OH)D serum concentration as low as 31 ng/mL. Accordingly, it's important you see the actual 25(OH)D serum concentration results. Download a copy of the anti-inflammatory regimen CH preventative treatment protocol from the following link and take a copy along for your next visit with your doctors to discuss and to ask for the 25(OH)D lab test. http://www.vitamindwiki.com/tiki-download_wiki_attachment.php?attId=7708 When your 25(OH)D lab results come back at or below 30 ng/mL (75 nmol/L), the next step is starting the anti-inflammatory regimen per the link above. Take care and please keep us posted. V/R, Batch