Bejeeber

Agreed with CHf, including the feckers part. :-/ Imitrex is an abortive that you take right at onset of an attack. The inhaler version is pretty darn effective, the injection form is very darn effective. Some of the caveats are the possible side effects including rebound attacks, and the definite bust blocking. Valporic acid, AKA Depakote, is not what I think of as the first preventative drug usually tried for CH. Verapamil is more common (so much so that I incorrectly recalled that it was valporic acid for a minute there and posted a rambling opinion on it, which I've now edited out). :-[

Ooh that's a tuffy (for me at least), and I'm thinking it would be helpful to know how much worked for you last time. If 1G worked before, then since you dread the trip I'd say maybe stick with that so you'll have an additional dose still at your disposal. If you'll have continued access to more MM, well some say 2g makes for a less anxiety ridden (and possibly more effective) trip than 1g, but if you're already tripping when you read this, you're probably in no place to be making further dosage decisions and maybe ya oughta just try to enjoy your therapeutic ride and feel the love and good wishes coming to you from your clusterbusters family here. [smiley=vrolijk_1.gif] Here's to this being another really successful bust for you! [smiley=thumbup.gif]

Hey Unc, Glad to see you're receiving such excellent advice, and if there's one universal truth about the CH experience, this unfortunately seems to be it:

Dam. :-? Grasping at straws here, but are you on any prescription or other meds right now? (some are known to block the effectiveness of busting)

Oh great now we're cuckoo to boot. I thought this part was notable: "The researchers said the findings could be a reflection of continued exposure to pain, as with chronic forms of headache, and of the risk of sudden, intense pain, as with headaches that are episodic. However, it may be more complicated than that, they acknowledged." My answer to this... "..our question is, ‘could the response be considered as a manifestation of existing psychological traits that may be at the origin of the primary headache?" ...is: I seriously doubt it.

Oh. Well that's not good at all. As we say in the states, "Dog Darnit!". OK, I shouldn't incriminate others, in actuality I'm probably the only one who says that. Sounds to me like it's time for you to move to partial dose sumatriptan injections. With them, the extended visit from one Mr. Leonard would likely have been avoidable last night. You could have hit him with a second dose, and if your experience is (hopefully) like mine, an injection can last ya for 3 hours when 'ol Lenny is coming on like a locomotive for the night hits in high cycle, is laughing at the O2, and does NOT want to be denied his game of Scrabble. Feck Leonard.

Tyke - I'm enjoying your report and I like your slogan too. ;D 8-)

What CHS said - is there a link to the story?

Amen. We all need to stop referring to our condition using the term "headache" and stop doing it yesterday IMO, otherwise we're just asking to be treated accordingly.

Hey jimmys - I can't speak for Chris of course, but that 's never stopped me from butting in before , so.... In order to inject 3mg trex, the the partial dose method described in this "Extending Your Imitrex" link is widely used: http://www.clusterheadaches.com/imitrex.html

That is an interesting quote and a good find. In a national institute of health .gov article no less. Thanks Shocked (I've pasted an excerpt from it below): "..Interestingly, in May 2002, he took 1 g of ‘‘magic mushrooms’’ (containing psilocybin) which rendered him pain free for one month; since then he has been taking magic mushrooms 1 g once every one to two months, which renders him pain free for two to six weeks."

Hey Tyke, Hating that you're getting hit right now, but enjoying the engaging way in which you converse. ;D I'm thinking your verapamil dose sounds low for CH - maybe some headbangers well versed in verap will be along to comment on that. It is known to take awhile to kick in. :-/ If you acquire RC first, it can be a good strategy to continue to pursue the procurement of the McMushies, so you'll have them ready to go as your back up plan just in case, and won't be caught with knickers down. Ha, I said knickers because you're British. Sigh, well it's a bit of a dirty little secret, but this is a familiar pattern - I've talked to other CH'ers who like me have experienced the same phenomenon. Thank gawsh that busting can potentially render it a moot point.

That does sound like the hallmark of the way a peak cycle behaves for some of us. :-/ Dammit. I hope it's a really short peak. Sorry if we've gone over this ad nauseam before jimmys, but are you hyperventilating high flow non-rebreather O2? There are those of us who need to go higher than 25 LPM or use a demand valve system. This may also be super old and therefore annoying news to you, but in the spirit of leaving no stone unturned, some headbangers find that slamming the energy drink/shot right before the O2 can make the difference between abort or no abort.

Hmmm if I remember correctly Wellbutrin affects dopamine more than serotonin, so I guess I don't really don't know - it does seem worth looking into though, since there are headbangers who have had good busting results while remaining on their SSRI anti-depressant. Fingers crossed that the same luck could be found with Wellbutrin.....

This causes my eyes to bug out. Way out. That is the coolest thing ever, humbuckers and all. 8-) [smiley=thumbup.gif]

I wish I could tell you I've seen a definitive answer to that question, but unfortunately some feel strongly that 5 is a hard and fast rule, while others believe just as strongly that 4 or even 3 days can suffice. So this is one topic where I don't have any feeling that there's a real consensus among CBusting folk, and it could probably even be deemed controversial. :-/

Ugh, yeah been there in high cycle where the O2 aborts for wake up hits tend to hold for exactly one hour. Here's hoping that AT LEAST the severity remains somewhat tempered, and that it could even be an indicator that the entire cycle is beginning to wane and is on the way out.

Cool. 8-)

Best of luck iPain. You're way overdue for some luck of the good variety. And I know whatcha mean about finding the heat/cold to be more useful for the attacks that aren't at such an astronomic/nuclear level, although that's limited to my experience with attempts to abort an attack - I guess I haven't really pursued the heat/cold just with the hopes of lessening the severity of a hit that's not going to be aborted.

Whoa, Impressive! Seems like when you decide to do something, you just fully commit and go for it, no idling around. 8-) You sure have yourself a good tattoo artist there.[smiley=thumbup.gif]

Yay.

Yeah I'm afraid most if not ALL of us are familiar with that sad and tired old routine! I sure hope you can get to a good headache specialist sooner than later, Legion, as it's hard to imagine one of them trying to slap the hillbilly heroin on ya - certainly the experience wouldn't be as FUBAR as it is with your current doc. Glad the girlfriend didn't comply with your hammering instructions.Â

Thanks for the update MG, that's pretty darn tootin' interesting.

Oh. Well based on my personal experience, that can be a MAJOR game changer right there, since as episodics we do have the option that our chronic compadres don't have of riding out a cycle with meds, then following up with maintenance busting. I've ridden out a 2.5 month cycle before with O2 and meds (plenty of trex jabs at high cycle for the wake up hits) when RC didn't bust it for me, and have successfully busted with vit M ever since, so I can see this approach working for others too, especially when there are only 2 weeks or so expected to be left of a cycle. With hyper-vigilance, luck, and armed to the teeth, I was able to abort every single hit during that 2.5 months, at least well enough that I never had to endure a full blown, full length (3 hour long) version. So my take on it is that we don't have to adopt a religious sort of shunning of all meds when there's a temporary, critical situation they can very likely help us out of. [Caveat: keeping in mind that there's a slight risk of an episodic pattern treated with meds turning into a chronic one when we least expect it - a risk I took and was lucky enough to come out the other end fine.]

Understood about the need to have that trex injection handy. You might find some recent posts by Ricardo on the subject of trex injections in proximity to busting to be interesting, keeping in mind that there can be a wide variation in how we CH'ers respond to these things, and that Ricardo takes unusually high Vit M doses: http://www.clusterheadaches.com/cb/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1369049582/11#11