Of course CHfather, sharing is caring
According to the international headache society (3.2 Paroxysmal hemicrania - ICHD-3) PH can only be established when there is an absolute positive result on Indometacine. Let me explain why we (me and my neuro) are exploring this rare syndrome. Over the last two years I have turned into chronic, there was not a period longer than a month that I was in remission. The odd thing about this remission period of a month is, that literature does not state if the remission period is without or with medication. I have to say that even when there were weeks without attacks, I still used my preventative medicines; verapamil 720mg, sandomigran 3mg, naratriptan 2,5mg, D3 and the usual abortives O2 and sumatriptan. On occasions when there was too much pain and very frequent attacks I used prednisone. The prednisone tempered the severity and number of attacks, but not to zero. Back to my situation on why I went the Indometacine route. Beginning of this year the number of attacks was increasing rapidly to an average 200+ a month. On a few days I forgot to take my naratriptan, which let to almost 20 attacks that day. On discussing this with my neuro, we came to the conclusion that if I would not have taken my normal preventative medicines, the number of daily attacks would increase drastically to 20 or more. Another conclusion was that the efficacy of my meds is declining, for example when in the past a 6mg sumatriptan injection gave me 5 to 6 safe hours, no attack could break through, it now has decreased to max 2 hours. The attacks I have are not all that severe, but they are numerous, hence my situation could be marked as PH according to the ICHD-3.
Since PH is quite rare and my neuro does not have any reference patients currently, we embarked on doing a little experiment in adding Indometacine to my regular medicines. According to literature if one has PH the attacks should dissolve over time using Indometacine. The minimum level where people can positively respond on Indo is 150mg. This level needs to be build up gradually starting with 25mg (plus a stomach protection) and every 4th day increased by 25mg. On 150mg I had no response so we continued to 275mg (almost at its limit of 300mg). Indometacine takes an hour to start working after intake and lasts for about 6 to 7 hours. For me there needs to be a split in doses and this is very strict. Cause in the morning I have barely any attacks, I take the first 125mg at 13:00 and the second one 150mg at 19:00, just to make sure I can counter the attacks I have in the afternoon which continue into the night. Also, I figured out that the Indo is better taken after lunch and dinner, not before or during, but this may vary per person. I am taking for granted the side effects of Indo, in my case inability to poo for days, and more importantly an hour after the Indo intake I really get tired. In the beginning of my Indo trail, I used omeprozol to protect my stomach as a remedy for the obstipation, but to no avail, so nowadays I do not use any stomach protection.
Because of the gradual build it took me quite some time to get to the level where I can now say that the number of attacks has dropped from 10 to 1 or 2 a day. But. The clusterfuck about this is that I do not know whether I am slowly going into remission, end of cycle, or that I actually have a positive response to the Indo. The only way to find out is the next phase, lowering my verapamil and hope the Indo can hold the beast at bay. Not particularly looking forward to it, but it is the only way to prove if I have PH or not.
Hope this sheds some light, always open to share more info and experiences.
All the best