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I feel compelled to post this so maybe it may help someone. I have suffered with Episodic Clusters for 25 year. My most recent attack started 2 months ago. I have been on emgality, verapamil, and divalproex. To break the clusters I went to 150 milligrams of prednisone, stopped taking divalproex, and started lithium. I was unable to break this cycle. As I started to titrate off of the prednisone I became desperate. For 25 years I have drank diet coke and diet pepsi. I stopped drinking diet coke/pepsi and in addition started taking apple cider vinegar with a little bit of honey and water twice a day. After 2 days my headaches stopped. Even my occasional after noon naps I did not wake up with a headache.....Then wanting to have something bubbly I bought a sparking water. My headaches came back! I didn't realize it had sucralose in it. I immediately stopped and my headaches have not come back..I don't want to give anyone false hope but if this can help somebody I would be happy. I back tracked to when my cluster began and realized I used to drink diet coke after playing racquetball. My wife told me how stupid I was drinking a diuretic after working out..I have read somewhere that sucralose and aspartame are not triggers but I don't agree.

Leo, do you mean a concentrator (makes O2 out of room air)? For many people, those are not really fully effective, for two main reasons: the O2 they make is less than 100 pure (there's still some room air in it); and the regulator doesn't go high enough to support fully effective breathing. I'm glad it works for you, but as I say, they're not really right for everyone. (And I suppose we should consider what "works for you" means--with a fully optimized system, many/most people can abort an attack in ten minutes or even considerably less. If you're getting that result, it's great. If not, a cylinder-based system might show better results.)

hi Leo...welcome to the boat.... ......aspartame is vasoactive and a distinct trigger for me... same as MSG in all its ubiquitous, mostly hidden forms.....none of the other artificial sweeteners, like sucralose, but folks with sensitivities to such would not surprise me..... ....have always believed a log of CH hits and cycles...recording timing, weather, location, and what you were doing and ingesting preceding same... can be determinative in narrowing down one's particular triggers. know of one doc who uses as a diagnostic tool the fact that cluster patients seem to do logging almost compulsively. makes sense as we try to figure out the beast...... best jonathan

@trjonas, yes, I have what my neuro has described as a weird HC, because I have all the classic symptoms, but little to no response to indo. A few people have contacted me on FB recently regarding HC and busting. Are you one of them? My first name is Jessica. I am pretty much pain free with psilocybin. It took several heavy doses (5G) once a week to get the headache broken and pain free, and weekly doses of 1 gram keep me here. The pain free time only occurs at about a week at a time.