Bejeeber

Hey Dave, OK here's my experience FWIW: After some success with RC in years past, I stopped getting results from it, so I switched to Vit M which promptly did work wonders for me. I decided to give the RC one more shot with a fresh batch from iamshaman.com recently though when I was getting minor daily hits (a sign for me that a cycle likely is likely to want to start up full bore). I tried to follow the latest preparation guidelines suggested by the sharp people on here like CHfather - I floated out the bad ones, then crushed the 66 remaining good ones inside a baggie (I used a rubber mallet). Then for something a little different I soaked them in room temp ginger tea (Yogi brand) for 2 hours before ingesting all 66. I was hoping the ginger would help me avoid my one minute of nausea I tend to get from RC. Still got the brief nausea, but darned if the RC didn't just snuff out all my CH symptoms with no minor hits, no nuthin' in the following days. 8-) SOOooOoo, I don't know if the ginger tea helped, or did I finally get my hands on a potent batch of RC again, or what? Ricardo has offered that a peppermint tea soak will convert the LSA into LSH, which is also effective, with possibly more of a trip inducing potential. Word has it that ginger might do the same.... Unfortunately, I don't know if the RC would've been able to break me out of a high cycle like you're experiencing, since those are tougher to knock down. :-/

I think you'll find energy drinks to be more effective than just caffeine drinks, because it's the combo of caffeine and taurine in the energy drinks that is considered to be the real ticket. At work energy shots can be good, since you can have them right in your pocket ready to down in one second at the first sign of an impending attack. And combining them with O2 or even push ups etc. can just make the abort all the more guaranteed and long lasting. 8-)

For me, pre-busting it was a matter of becoming ultra aggressive and focusing all of my off work hours into in the pursuit of knowledge regarding what other CH'ers were finding to be the most effective treatments, then going all out to implement what I'd learned. [Full disclosure - I wanted to keep my job, but my primary motivation was terror in anticipation of more attacks] The last time I took this approach when holding a job with regular hours at the office, I only experienced one non aborted attack at work during a 2.5 month cycle. Also working in my favor was some luck and money! Guissepi, a regular contributor on the other board, held down his job as a patrol cop (!) for around 30 years by always having an E tank with a DEMAND VALVE in his patrol car, which allowed him to pull right over and abort attacks within 5 minutes. So I think an E tank in the car with a DEMAND VALVE is something for any CH'er in cycle trying to hold an office or other on site job to seriously consider. Not only is the demand valve the most effective delivery system, it conserves supply because the O2 only flows on inhale - a really big deal that can save our arses when away from home. The past couple years CH hasn't interfered at all for me. A cycle tries to start up, and I simply knock it back down with mushrooms or most recently, RC seeds. Results like these aren't so attainable for some, I realize, hence my gratitude that my luck has held so far, even if the money has run out once or twice.

WTF, that is HORRIBLE. :'( Lots of admiration here for you for vowing to stay strong and stay away from the triptans under these extreme circumstances. Unless you've tried RC already and not gotten results, I wonder if you should consider ordering some tomorrow, overnighted, so you could have it Wednesday and take it before bed (no tripping, just good sleep should result). But dammit that could mess with your Vit M weekend busting plan, so I don't know if that's a worthy idea or not.....? Any chance of snagging some high flow welding O2 tomorrow so you can have an alternative to triptans for aborting attacks?

Whoa - now THAT'S a Vegas story , so you'll be returning in Sept. 2012 for your 46th Vegas anniversary! Oh those pesky pesky decades can end up flinging by ever so rapidly, can they not? Let the whippersnappers like Dan here be forewarned. Here's a random photo found online of Vegas June '66 for your reminiscing pleasure  ;D

It's been over 10 years since I've been to the Rio, but I too remember they had nice good size suites. I've made sure to lock in my $85 room rate for this conference, as my likelihood of attending has now risen on the Jeebs-o-meter to to 68%! How can any of us afford NOT to go, really, considering the windfall profits we can expect from the gambling, gambling and more gambling?? ;D

Oh man what a double whammy - losing your mom right at the same time you're being hit with CH. So sorry to hear of this Poisonsel. :'(

What Jeff said. I too am afraid you'll need more detox time. Now if you're going to take sumatriptan in the future (O2 is actually a better choice, no detox required), the consensus is pretty much that the sumatriptan pill form is whimpy, too slow acting for CH, and is for migraine. If you really want to reliably abort actual attacks with sumatriptan, go for the injection form, or at least the inhaler. Here's hoping your bust works great and there'll be no need for that pesky sumatriptan anymore. 8-)

I haven't heard of anyone coming anywhere near losing control with the therapeutic CH dose of 35-50 RC seeds. Typically you just take them before bed and the one side effect experienced is a better night's sleep than usual. 8-) Just remember you should detox from the imitrex for 5 days or so before your RC dose(s). The D3 regimen is just an anti-inflammatory thingy that can be good for you in other ways. Lotsa CH'ers find it to be harmless and worth a try.

Hey K-bo, What Jeff said, plus it appears fairly common to me for us clusterheads to come to rely on clockwork CH attacks when we've experienced years of predictable CH behavior, only to have the Beast suddenly without notice switch things up in ways we never expected. I went decades with full rock solid confidence that I'd never experience an attack between sundown and bedtime (well except for the one time early on when I discovered beer is a trigger of nuclear proportions). Next thing ya know a cycle comes along where I'm bolting for the o2 tank a couple times every evening. Not sure what would've happened with the timing of attacks for my last cycle because I busted it. 8-) Hope you can do the same!! And now that you're mentioning triptan shots, I hope you're already aware of the method for extending your imitrex supply (and lessening side effect risk) by 2x to 3x: http://www.clusterheadaches.com/imitrex.html I'll also second the vit D3 therapy that Polar Blair mentioned: http://www.clusterheadaches.com/cb/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1314134804 I see it's originator, "Batch", is now reporting 88% effectiveness for episodics, 66% for chronics.

Wait a minute this sounds like the "I'll show you my scar if you'll show me your password" ploy that you pulled on poor Ron at the Dallas Denny convention. ;D

Hipshot isn't the only one on here who ended up with his hip shot from prednisone, requiring a hip replacement. And that's just one of the severe, permanent side effects to be acquired from sustained high doses of prednisone.

I've gone as far as booking flights (refundable) in hopes of making it. The wife will want to go on this Vegas trip too as she's a fan of the slots. Wuh oh. My hopes of going mainly revolve around meeting up with and hanging out with the good message board folk here. 8-)

Wow I hadn't caught on that our European clusterheads here, including those in the UK, could order psilocybe truffles online. Making a note of that - thanks. 8-)

All very good ideas! > This sort of stuff makes my blood boil, so I avoided watching the clip 'til now. I guess I thought this would be a time I could withstand it - nothing like a good saturday afternoon blood boiling festivity! > These arrogant scuzzbags represent everything that is so very wrong with the medical profession. They clearly just wing it when the cameras roll, and can't even be bothered to put one nanosecond of research into the day's topic while riding in their limousines to the TV studio. Maybe it's like a fun game to them, to have something sprung on them they've never heard of, then they can use some free association to conjure up solutions and advice right on the spot.... The term *criminal negligence* comes to mind along with a lot of other related terms. > I wonder if we should follow Jeff's suit and organize a mass visit to their message board to leave comments...? Well if they weren't deleting them. Someone with the means could so rip them a new one with an expose' video to be aired here and on Youtube etc. that could intersperse info on what CH really is and how to treat it with the uber negligent BS commentary of these idiots, maybe repeatedly going back to that creepy drunken plastic surgeon on the left for emphasis. I'll have to wait to watch the Doc Oz segment on CH. Blood already boileth over.Â

I think it's clear that you have to select only one busting agent to respond about, and now that you only respond about your most recent experience, but the main thing I'm questioning is whether that makes for an accurate survey. A lot of us have valuable input regarding multiple busting substances, and how they compare to each other, why only allow us to respond about one? If someone had ten good busting experiences in a row, then on their most recent 11th one had a negative experience, how useful is their data if they can only report on the most recent bust? If dosage level substantially impacted their experience for instance, there's no way for that to be recorded in the survey - not even a comment box.... I'm starting to think that testing surveys out on a few individuals first for feedback, then making adjustments before going public would be a good way to iron some kinks out. I'm happy to take this survey over again if it re-appears in a more comprehensive form.

Took it. Thanks to Jason and 2 notes: 1) Many of us have tried at least 2 different busting agents, so accounting for that in future surveys may be useful. 2) I for one have had mixed experiences while under the influence of Vitamin M, with the first bust being enjoyable, the subsequent busts not so much. The enjoyable one was a higher dose and there has been a theory floated that lower "fence straddling" doses are more likely to cause some of us anxiety. So since I had varying experiences - plural, it was hard to pick singular answers regarding the quality of the experience. Not sure how that could be accommodated in the survey. A comment box for that section could've been useful though. As a side note, I've found that whether my experience under the influence of Vit M was positive or negative, the after experience starting immediately the next day was always positive in regard to both effectiveness and mood/outlook.

Ditto. Yes *headache* is a very very inaccurate misnomer for this condition, and I don't know that we can completely fault others for not understanding the severity of the affliction when we use it. You won't catch me calling an attack a headache, and one advantage to that is when people still don't grasp the situation you can definitely fault them.Â

Hey k-bo, what Pixie-E said about the 100% O2 at 25 LPM or higher if you're not already doing that. I looked back at some of your old posts and see that you had ordered and tried RC seeds at the end of the last cycle but had been mistakenly only been sent 10 seeds. I'm thinking ordering a guaranteed large quantity could be a good way for you to proceed now (when I've ordered 100 from Iamshaman for instance, they've often sent me more like 200 for $12.99). Granted $12.99 is $12.99 more than the $0 funds you currently have at your disposal, but if you find yourself able to purchase Red Bulls, well I guess these seeds would cost about as much as 6 of them. [Tangent: I've actually found that the "Energy 2000" shots for $1 at our local Walgreen's drugstore work nicely, plus there are some similar deals on energy shots on amazon.com] Here's hoping that dosing with 35 - 50 RC seeds at a time could really do ya some good in the prevention dept. 8-)

What Bawb said. And whoa, THIRTY years, really??!! That is a bonafide honkload of years indeed and a big deal. CONGRATS.Â

Whoever titled Nutt's job must be a real .....nut job. Ahem. Sorry about that one. [smiley=tongue.gif]

Whoa I'll say! After reading that I could barely resist running to the window, sticking my head out, and yelling "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!!"Â Of course it would suck if I did my Freudian Slip thing and ended up yelling "I'm OLD as hell and I'm not going to.....um....!"

That seems pretty commonplace - I've seen others report the same thing and I definitely recognize that one from my own experience, although I guess I can't really know for sure whether the prednisone caused my cycles to start lasting longer or if they were going to just go ahead and do that anyway.

Glad to hear it Dooley! I hope your neurologist is an actual headache specialist. If not, you might want to take anything a garden variety neuro says with a grain of salt, since they're often misinformed about CH.

Sounds pretty migraine-ish to me.