Jump to content

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 09/22/2020 in all areas

  1. @Snowflake Lots of stuff going on my friend. Stay strong and determined. Life is a gift and even if you have to eat shit a lot the times in between offer you an opportunity to make the world a better place. Regarding suicidal ideation. This is very common for clusterheads. We all know its is true and survey data and personal stories all support the disproportional number of folks who choose to exit this earth and reenter the cosmic stream. The option of suicide can be empowering because you have the control NOT To Do It. Its good to have options and no one can take that away. It is much better to deny the beast the pleasure of self destruction and seek ways to improve the world. That way everyone wins. Ketamine has remarkable potential to help break a cycle of suicidal ideation. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4380583/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5356805/ https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/does-ketamine-hold-promise-mitigating-suicide-risk http://scivisionpub.com/pdfs/titrated-serial-ketamine-infusions-stop-outpatient-suicidality-and-avert-er-visits-and-hospitalizations-918.pdf Now pay attention, this is important: The efficacy of ketamine and other classic psychedelics is in the context of knowledgeable directed therapy. These approaches need to be supervised by someone with familiarity and mental health training. The drugs put one in a state of mind to do the difficult work of therapy and get favorable long term results. Sure there are folks who believe they can do it alone, don't need help, the drug itself will get you what you need. This is patently false and dangerous when done by someone who is in mental distress of has an underlying psychological problem. Psychedelics in a mentally healthy person can be a great tool of self exploration but an unstable soul can get in real trouble with self directed trouble. There is an enormous upside to using psychedelics to treat a variety of recalcitrant mental health conditions but individually guided therapy is a recipe for a bad headline. Be strong, stay strong, figure out how to get what you need. Knowledge is empowering
    2 points
  2. Suicidal ideation is serious stuff. There is very strong evidence that therapy with ketamine will knock out the harmful thoughts and allow therapy to progress positively. I personally believe it would be a harmful idea to attempt to manage your situation using psychedelics without knowledgeable support. Depending where you live there are an emerging number of practioners who know how to use these medications effectively. Please seek appropriate support. This is a study now enrolling again that you might consider. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03866174 Also there is a multicentered study going on sponsored by MAPS. When conventional treatments fail its is worth looking at some of the sanctioned research. T
    2 points
  3. Hi Nicole, I have chronic migraine and chronic paroxysmal hemicrania and first they thought I had CH (because it is very similar) and they gave me oxygen. To my big surprise, oxygen worked for migraine because it is normally supposed to work for CH only ! But I had to do 20 min 15 l/min immediately at the onset of the attack. Once the migraine really comes trough, it does not work anymore. So the trick is to act fast. I have a success rate of 70-80 % with oxygen. It brought down my use of triptans from 8 - 10 a month to nearly zero. What you can try is go to your closest ER when feeling a migraine is going to come and ask for 15 min oxygen and see what it does. If it does not work, nothing is lost. There is also a dedicated forum for migraines (www.migraine.com). This forum is more specialized in trigeminal autonomic cephalalgia or TAC's. It looks like you are a candidate for aimovig or one of those newer medications. In that migraine forum, they have tons of experience with these new medications. All the best ! siegfried
    1 point
  4. Hey Siegfried, CPH responds to vitamin D3 at higher 25(OH)D3 serum concentrations when accompanied with other anti-inflammatory agents. Please shoot me a PM with your contact data so I can send you a copy of the latest version of the anti-inflammatory regimen treatment protocol. Take care, V/R, Batch
    1 point
  5. yup it sucks to be dependent on such harshness to survive. Similar to needing high dose steroids when the equinox's and solstice's come around. Stay strong friend
    1 point
  6. Fun Times is correct. Make sure it is the 300 for Clusters, not the 100 for migraines. It has helped a lot of people.
    1 point
  7. I go this advice from Batch last year when I started getting shadows.. (everyone is different) but it worked for me.. knocked my shadows right out.
    1 point
  8. Bryan I'm really happy for you truly! I was just reading through your earlier messages, and your experience sounds exactly like my partners (he's the one who suffers from these). 20 years ongoing, usually cycles last 6-10 weeks, and was meant to land about August-September. They get as bad as they can get: Kip 10+, throwing Imitrex and every drug possible at it to not much effect. He also started the D3 regimen 6 months ago like you so it'll be really interesting to see what happens as he just started having shadows in August. Please do keep us posted.. honestly after 20 years if this works or even lessens the cycle / severity, this would be life changing thank you to Batch! Stay safe and don't give up, cheering your progress on from here!
    1 point
  9. Hey 4Runner, Let me offer a different perspective. I'm a chronic cluster head and have had them year round since they started in Jan 2007. That said, the last few years they have been incredibly mild, short and rare. 1-2 a month that might reach KIP 2 or 3. This is largely... who am I kidding... this is ENTIRELY down to an aggressive busting regimen that I started back when they were really bad (2-5 attacks a day, every 2-3 days with each attack lasting 1-3 hours, for a year). Thankfully, alcohol isn't a trigger for me because I sometimes - rarely, but sometimes - use it to terminate a migraine as I am also a chronic migraine sufferer. Last year I was getting 25+ a month on a regular basis. Thankfully, most were short and treatable with triptans. But, 2-3 times a year I'll get a migraine that lasts 3+ days and triptans have no effect. When I reach day 3 and nothing has worked to alleviate the pain, I turn to vodka. I am sure to get only the good stuff. Russian Standard is my go to, but Absolut Vodka and Smirnoff are OK too. The better quality of vodka the less likely you are to have a hangover. Don't buy cheap vodka, it's a waste of money. I sit down with a shot glass and a chaser - used to be coke when I drank coke, now will be lemonade, or ice tea or pineapple juice or something. I will proceed to drink 9-12 shots of vodka over the course of an hour or so. The trick to avoid a hangover is to have 1-2 large glasses of water before bed. Hangovers are the result of the body getting dehydrated because of the alcohol, and your blood vessels shrink, and they hurt when they shrink. Once you have a hangover, it's too late. You have to suffer through it. But, if you preempt it by loading your body up with water before you go to bed, then you don't get dehydrated during the night. No hangover. I haven't had a hangover in 12 years. Some people take Anadin, Paracetamol or Asprin with the 2 glasses of water, but I found it wasn't necessary. I'll usually still have the migraine when I go to bed, but will wake up absolutely fine the next morning. On those very rare occasions when I'm out drinking with friends, I always order a pint of water with my last round, and then have another pint of water when I get home. The last time I drank a lot was several years ago in Scotland at a wedding reception for my best friend. I was doing shots of vodka with Vodka & Coke chasers, and I stopped counting somewhere around 12 or 13. There are chunks of the night that I don't remember. But, I had a glass of water with my last round and another when I got to the hotel. I got up about 7:30 the next morning, had breakfast with friends then got my camera and when shooting around the Scottish countryside for a few hours before the drive home. Not bragging, just saying the water thing works. An English Breakfast is a great way to reload the body with nutrients the next day. I typically have Bacon, Eggs, Sausage, hash browns and toast. Not quite a Full English, but it does the trick. Regardless, get plenty of protein in you the next morning. I told both my GP and my Neurologist about this method back when I as routinely having migraines that lasted 2 - 7 days. They both advised that I only use it as a last resort as my body will build up a tolerance, and I'll need more and more alcohol in order to reach pain free status. I took their advice, and only use it when nothing else works. Thankfully, I don't have to do it that often any more, and I rarely drink otherwise. Although, I normally keep a bottle, or 1/2 bottle of vodka in the freezer, just in case I need it. I understand the points the other posters made, and I'm not here to promote alcohol consumption. But, if it works, don't knock it. If it buys you a good night's sleep and a day or two pain free, go for it. Just find the best way to do it, use caution and be smart about it. And, when the pain is gone, leave the alcohol alone. You don't want to build up a tolerance for it. I hope my tips help reduce the hangover. Mox
    1 point
  10. First of all, my advice for everybody is to avoid alcohol completely in life in general and especially in treating clusters, no matter what you can achieve using it treatment wise. Personally, younger drinking too much, to the point of passing out provided me with a "shield" - a time period inside which cluster attacks did not happen. I drank more and more and during years this time period got shorter to the point when alcohol did not build this shield at all anymore. And I had a huge alcohol problem. Back then I used to think it lessened my attacks, I don't anymore - I think I got them back in spades later on. I have chatted with quite a few (usually male) clusterheads over the years who use alcohol for this shielding effect. I believe in the point when this is happening everyone is still quite manageable episodic. I don't want to encourage anyone to try or use it because there are healthier alternatives, for the brain and for life and people around us. But it's an interesting phenomenon which should be looked at that might help us understand clusters better and get us closer to finding the "cure". The other side of the coin; guys who have stopped using alcohol altogether at some point of their lives and have decades to look at cluster-wise usually notice there is some kind of correlation with no alcohol (different mind set) - no clusters (severe cycles).
    1 point
×
×
  • Create New...