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Hiya, I wrote up my method for doing seeds a few years ago, lots of people find it helpful. Moxie Girl's Seed Recipe (in the Files Section) I'm from Iowa living in the UK, if that help. MG1 point
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The only thing I can say about the sofa is it will sometimes make me uncomfortable to the point it triggers one. It's so plush that it makes my back/ neck loose circulation. I also find if I lean on my elbows on the armrest it can cause it to aggravate my neck and once my neck gets aggravated I usually get attack. I avoid any thing the puts pressure on my obcebial nerve.1 point
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Yeah, I made it. I've finaly uploaded my app idea to the Play Store and sended out emails to all the Android users that signed in to become a tester of the app. This means we are finally in the testingfase of the RegisterYourJourney app. If testing goes well, I will publish the app as soon as possible for everybody to use. It will be free fo download. A small explication of why I've made an app for us. All the years that I already have cluster attacks, I've been looking for an simple way to register my attacks and everything I do to feel better. This is what I see as my personal journey. Excel sheets didn't work for me because its not an easy way, most apps only gave me the option to register attacks and medicine use, but we do so much more than that. A lot of apps also ask to many things when you want to register an attack. This is really nice to know but if my attacks starts, it hits me like lightning and I don't think about filling out a form with questions. The information collected in these apps are mostly stored in an agenda, nice, but it gives me no clear view on what I've done because I need to open day by day to find out. What does my app different for us RegistrateYourJourney gives the option to register whatever you want. If you would like to register only medicine use and attacks than you only add "Cluster headache" and "Your Medicines" as buttons to the app and you can push the buttons to register these items. Benefit now is that you can also register your vitamin D, magnesium or magic mushroom use. Or you can register the use of coffee if you are interesed in knowing if the use of coffee has any influence on your attacks. I've made (for the moment) 7 groups of buttons: Symptoms, Medicine, Alternative Medicine,Therapies, Vitamins and minerals, food and drinks and activity. In every group are some items listed, but it is still a small collection. If you need an extra button like a medicine that isn't listed or another therapy, just go to the website and request a new button and I will add it as soon as possible. Why would this app help us? I strongly believe that if we can register all we individual think is important, we will find more structure in our attacks. Maeby we can find out why Vit D seems to work for one and not for the other as a lot of things we try. Meaby we can try things together and registrate this also together, so we can do some investigation ourselves. Meaby we can combine our data with the weather report or allergy reports so we can see if there is a correlation between attacks and weather or pollen. Maeby later we can combine it with data collected in a health watch, but thats all future. The other side is that I think that pushing a button is easier than filling in reports. The easier it is to register, the more data we can collect. That has been the base of my idea. Hope you will all enjoy the app. It will be free to download from the Play Store for Android users. iTunes/Apple users have to wait a little bit more. The iOS project is finished but the publication time for iOS is way longer. If you want to become a tester, for this version and future ones, please send me an email and I will add you as soon as possible. Please mention the type of phone, operating system, the email address you use for the Play Store or iTunes and you name so I can add you correctly to the list. (Without the correct email address I can't add you to the whitelist for testers) Hope that I can contribute to our journey finding a solution and that everybody feels well.1 point
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An interesting and timely thread... I may be able to contribute... You be the judge... My formerly black pickup mid March, a week into the Red Alder tree (Alnus rubra) pollen fall... It's gotten worse since then. The Red Alder pollen catkins are nearly spent, but the Bigleaf Maple (Acer macrophyllum) pollen drop is just starting... When I built the house in '82, I had a USDA Forest Service rep in to timber cruise the property. He estimated the Bigleaf Maples growing near the creek were 200 to 220 years old with 34 inch diameter trunks at that time. The Bigleaf Maple in the photo with sword ferns growing 20 feet up the moss covered bark has a 38 inch diameter trunk. I measured its height with a laser range finder at 125 feet. The Bigleaf Maples are loaded with blooms... If last year was any indication... we've another two to three weeks of very high pollen count outside my bedroom window here in Kitsap County in the heart of Puget Sound, WA. So what does all this forestry have to do with cluster headache... A lot!!! I'm with Weatherman on primary and secondary triggers. This concept makes good sense... I've also been sharing data from the online survey of CH'ers taking vitamin D3 as part of the anti-inflammatory regimen to prevent their CH and some of my own observations with Dr. Todd Rozen, MD, Director Headache Program, Geisinger Health Care, Wilkes Barre, PA. I've been working with Dr. Rozen since 2007 when I introduced him to the demand valve method of oxygen therapy... Dr. Rozen was also kind enough to swing by my poster presentation on the results of the survey of 127 CH'ers taking the anti-inflammatory regimen to prevent their CH at the AAN Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA last April. I'm the old guy in the western getup on the right... I didn't want any of the neurologists watching my poster presentation thinking I was a doctor... I'm normally on a maintenance dose of 10,000 IU/day vitamin D3 with a 25(OH)D serum concentration around 80 ng/mL to stay pain free for most of the year... However, for the last two years starting in March, I've titrated up to 25,000 IU/day and by the end of March I'm usually up to an average of 40,000 IU/day vitamin D3 in order to stay CH pain free. With the heavier than normal pollen this year, I've been averaging 50,000 IU/day vitamin D3 and doubling the magnesium to 800 mg/day since the first week in March... Only it's not working as I'd hoped... It's a little embarrassing to be the vitamin D3 guru and still get hit with CH... but that was the case three weeks ago... I started getting hit up to 3 times a night while taking an average of 50,000 IU/day vitamin D3... Fortunately, oxygen therapy with hyperventilation knocked down these hits in 5 to 7 minutes. At that point I went back over my notes and found the mechanism of action for an allergic reaction results in a flood of histamine... Pollen hits mast cells in the mucus membranes of the nasal passages, the mast cells dump histamines and other inflammatory agents into the surrounding tissues and blood stream and it's off to the races with an allergic cascade... Another interesting part of an allergic reaction is there's a spike in the absolute eosinaphil count... When the absolute count of these specialized white blood cells goes over 350, it's a good indication there's an allergic reaction present. My PCP has been great following my use of vitamin D3 to prevent my CH, so I got him to write me a script for the CBC and WBC Differential blood tests... I took the scripts over to the Naval hospital for a blood draw and two days later I got the results... My absolute eosinaphil count was 390.... Another check of my notes along with some open source standard of care recommended treatments for allergies and up jumped good old benedryl, a first-generation antihistamine. The rational for taking a first-generation anti-histamine is they pass through the blood brain barrier where second- and third-generation anti-histamines do not. This allows benedryl to block histamine receptors in brain cells... and in turn, slow or stop the allergic reaction where it counts most for CH'ers. Accordingly, I started dosing with benedryl per the instructions on the bottle at 25 mg 4 times a day. The results were dramatic... In less than two days, the frequency and severity of my CH dropped to less than one mild hit a night (while sleeping), and these CH were so mild, they aborted very rapidly with two to three deep breaths of oxygen. I've actually slept several nights totally pain free since starting the benedryl and I've also tapered my vitamin D3 intake down to 40,000 IU/day... When I shared this information with Dr. Rozen, he commented I was spot on target... He indicated they frequently treat migraineurs and a few CH'ers hospitalized due to their headaches, with a benedryl IV. The thinking now is an allergic reaction impacts the vitamin D3 capacity to prevent CH by one or more of three mechanisms: It totally overwhelms vitamin D3 genetic expression; It interferes with vitamin D3 genetic expression; or the immune system response to the allergic reaction consumes available vitamin D3, it's metabolites and enzymes needed to hydoxylate vitamin D3 all the way to its hormonal form, 1,25(OH)2D3... leaving too little left to prevent CH... Sorry, my degree was in chemistry... Hydroxylation is a chemical process that introduces a hydroxyl group (-OH) into an organic compound. In the case of vitamin D3, two (-OH) groups are added, one each to the 1st and 25th positions on the vitamin D3 molecule to make 1,25(OH)2D3. Connecting all the dots and piecing the puzzle together... it appears an allergic reaction renders nearly all methods of CH intervention less effective at best... and totally ineffective the rest of the time... That goes for imitrex, oxygen, verapamil, vitamin D3, and psilocybin... Moreover, it also appears that treating the allergic reaction with a first-generation antihistamine makes these methods of CH intervention affective again. By the way, there are a number of studies that have concluded that mushrooms exposed to the UV-B in sunlight or UV lamps, results in a nutritional increase in the ergocalciferol (vitamin D2) content of mushrooms... up to 990 IU/70 grams of fresh mushrooms... If dried, the vitamin D2 content/gram is much higher... See the following link: http://omicsonline.org/a-nutritionally-meaningful-increase-in-vitamin-d-in-retail-mushrooms-is-attainable-by-exposure-to-sunlight-prior-to-consumption-2155-9600.1000236.php?aid=20611 Please understand I'm not suggesting this is the mechanism of action in using psilocybin to bust CH... There's a very real mechanism of action involved in psilocybin's capacity to prevent CH... The vitamin D2 content is none-the-less a thinker...  Your thoughts? Take care, V/R, Batch1 point