Bejeeber

Imitrex is known to block the effects of RC seeds and the like. You may be able to get away with staying on the verap. A mid size can or shot so that you're getting around 100 mg caffeine. Chug it as fast as possible at onset of CH attack. I don't think cold or warm matters. Some CH'ers believe that the carbonation in the cans helps with quick absorption. I dunno about that - I think downing a shot in one second makes for pretty quick absorption, and helps you get to your freezing air breathing/welding O2 breathing or whatever else ya got faster. [Edit: just saw CHfather's post that went up while I was typing mine. You're the fastest gun this time CHF, but I'll get ya next time - meet me at high noon! . Anyhoo Crystal, I'm agreed with CHF, and will just add that some CH'ers even take the melatonin up to the 18-21 mg range (I don't actually know how safe that is though) to get night relief.]

Un-fecking-believably cool!! Glad to hear you're leaving the max amount of trees standing. 8-)

Unfortunately you would have to be detoxed off the drugs for 5 days in order for mushrooms to work effectively. :'( You and I, as episodic CH'ers are in a different place here than the chronics when it comes to deciding whether to detox and bust, and with only 2 weeks expected to be left of your cycle, well I would probably save the mushrooms (or RC seeds, more about that later) for prevention of your next cycle. A couple things to note: That verapamil dose is a low one for CH. CH'ers routinely find that much higher doses are what actually works. Hopefully someone who's been there will happen along and elucidate, or you could start a new topic here or at the other ch.com message board asking about it. If the prednisone isn't helping much, well I'd taper off. That's because at prolonged doses of 60 mg I experienced immune system malfunctions, and this and many other serious probs are to be expected with sustained high dose prednisone use. I just don't know how dangerous 40 mg a day is compared to 60 mg. If you're in the US you can potentially just get welding O2, cheaper, without a prescription! And it's reputed to be the same stuff as medical. lots of CH'ers do this. I bet CHfather will provide some input on this. Always listen carefully to everything he says. I do. 8-) Your idiot doctor sounds kind of hopeless, but don't you be! I imagine you're pretty much in "high cycle" at the moment with attacks coming on strong. That could make it more difficult for the following couple of quick and dirty free CH aborting techniques to work, but they could be worth a try: 1) At onset of attack, breathe freezing air deeply through the nose. if the outdoor weather isn't co-operating, jump in the car and put your nose up to the blasting A/C vent. 2) At onset, exercise extremely vigorously, as in sprinting A couple more side notes - drink an energy drink or shot such as Red Bull that contains caffeine and taurine at onset. This could also help the partial dose imitrex/freezing air/exercise/O2 work longer and more effectively. If you were to taper off the prednisone and hadn't taken the imitrex for 5 days it could still be worth trying RC seeds (which are legal/easy to acquire) or mushrooms even while still on verapamil.

Crystal check out this link that describes how to stretch your imitrex doses - it may enable you to get 2 CH attack aborts from that one last shot (I've used this successfully many times for getting 2 doses from a 6 mg shot): http://www.clusterheadaches.com/imitrex.html

That sounds like it would be the pill form of imitrex, which most of us find to be quite ineffective. Of course there's a wide consensus among those who've tried high flow 100% O2 that it is a preferable first line abortive, but if you are going to use imitrex, have you considered the partial dose injection method which is much more effective than the pills, and cuts expense and side effect risk by providing 2 or 3 aborts per injection? Here's the link: http://www.clusterheadaches.com/imitrex.html

Well I think you're holding up dam well under the circumstances Ricardo and am glad you bring your personality and considerable intellect to the family get togethers here.  8-)

I found myself LOL'ing at some of the shots in this Halloweeny faces of fear gallery (taken at a commercial haunted house - the folks pictured here were paying for the thrill), although I haven't been through all 147 (!) photos yet. http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-504784_162-10009839.html?tag=page

Lookit Ting pumping iron! She's becoming some kind of super hero!Â

Hi Brad, Good to see you here - now your hangin' out with folks whom you have a very prominent thing in common with! I'm sure lots of us here have thought of surgery due to the severity of the condition, but, for good and happy reasons, 99.9% of us have dropped the idea. 2 main reasons (from my perspective at least): 1) There is a very good chance of major relief to be found through the *busting* that Tingeling mentioned, and other non toxic treatments. IMO Essential reading/viewing on the subject of busting is this Newsweek article and this video talk by Bob Wold: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/10/14/the-psychedelic-solution.html http://vimeo.com/10918637 2) Deep brain surgery is an outmoded way to go. Dr. Peter Goadsby, considered by many to be the world's foremost medical authority on CH, gave a talk I attended recently, and although in the surgical world there are now some miniature implants (in the jaw) for CH that could be considered in a pinch, newer technology is now in a testing/approval phase that will require no implant, just a remote *wand* sort of device. Basically we're just not into the drastic surgery thing with it's low success rates here because the much less risky busting approach works quite well for most of us, and that even includes some chronics among us who've been able to go into long stretches of full remission.  8-)

Or maybe this cake would be more apropo for Dan ;D :

Time for a Texas sized partee! [smiley=birthdays.gif] [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif] Here's a cake ;D :

Hey Panu, Yes I too find that magnesium goes a long way towards preventing leg cramps. I've read that leg cramps are often caused by a magnesium deficiency, but this is the first I've heard about CH being caused by brain cramps!

Agreed with b.g. - If there's one thing I think I've seen an absolute consensus on here, it's that you need to hit it immediately when it's much easier to knock down, do NOT wait.

Yes, I think so. ;D

I haven't had any useful advice to offer on this, but I've been following, and am glad to see y'all really dishing out some good ideas for Mystina and the rest of us who may have to deal with flights when at risk for CH attacks. Your fiance sounds like a good guy P-Elf, looks like ya picked a winner.

I remember seeing a couple of those links about magnesium sulfate IV for CH back during an episode in '97. When I saw this "Complete elimination of pain was observed in 80% of the patients within 15 minutes of infusion of MgSO4" I immediately talked a doctor into giving me one of those infusions. Didn't do jack for me - in fact I had a major attack on the way home from the doc office. Of course YMMV. There's a piping fresh new form of magnesium that some MIT nerds cooked up that they claim is the only one shown to cross the blood brain barrier. I have no idea whether it is actually worth looking into or not, but here's a link: http://www.swansonvitamins.com/health-library/products/magnesium-l-threonate-brain-function-mental-health-support.html

Yo T.O. , Since Red Bull already has a proverbial honkload of taurine in it I guess I'm not surprised that adding more didn't help. FWIW I've found better cold air abort results deep breathing with the shnoz up to the blasting car air conditioner vent than I have with the old head in the freezer trick. 8-)

Hey b.g., That's one FECKED up case of CH you've been hit with! > :'( (the *fecked* thing is some popular lingo amongst your new family here ). As I think you've already surmised, CH father is a tremendous resource for anyone landing here, with all his condensed advice tailored to get you from point A misery to point B relief as quickly and efficiently as possible. I salute your decision to order the seeds today, and yep the hard part can be the detox (5 days). It could be really helpful during detox to have that optimask or a demand valve system! Definitely keep growing those mushrooms for a back up. It's always good to have that back up because sometimes one busting agent won't quite work but another one will. A good thing to keep in mind about the D3 regimen is that it appears to be just plain good for you regardless, so if I were you I think I'd be starting in full on with it yesterday. 8-) PS - the jury may still be out a bit on just how much verapamil interferes with busting. I believe our formerly chronic forum member Brew related that he busted with some success (mushrooms) while still on the verap, then complete success when off the verap.

3 of the sweetest words known to clusterkind. Congrats Ob1!Â

Hi 21 yrs+, I can just relate my anecdotal one person's experience with gabapentin and tell you that twice I was on high doses for a few months and I wasn't aware of any memory loss risk and didn't experience any extra memory loss. Or have I just forgotten? Seriously, I have a pretty bad memory dating back to before any gabapentin use, but as I just recently mentioned in a thread here about lithium orotate, the supplement phosphatidyl serine has helped me dramatically enough to restore me back to normal memory when I'm on it. I don't mean to be pushing this stuff - just because it works for me doesn't mean it'll work for anyone else here, but if anyone tries it, keep in mind it'll take a week or two for it to fully kick in. Then there's this new supplement magnesium threonate for brain function that I'm going to be looking into... So I think gabapentin is maybe one drug I tolerate better than the average bear. I didn't mind the feeling of it so much, and it cut my CH attack frequency in about half. Yep it makes ya unusually HUNGRY while you're on it, but that goes away of course after tapering off. PS - there may be less rebound risk if you use 1/3 to 1/2 imitrex dose as outlined in the imitrex tip: http://www.clusterheadaches.com/imitrex.html And YAY for the new O2 prescription! That 15 LPM very well may work. If it doesn't keep in mind that a higher LPM very likely will.

Well that seems downright encouraging, doesn't it?Â

Well glad things are looking up a little bit there so far. Not too surprising I guess since verapamil lowers blood pressure..... Dang. 4 liters is half of what is normally prescribed, which is already WAY too low for so many of us. I need 25 LPM . In high cycle 45 LPM (!!). Sounds to me like your hub could use a demand valve system for his O2. Folks who have those routinely report aborts within 5 minutes or so. Sorry if this is getting all persnickety and naggy, but did he detox from all meds (and from Kudzu, which can interfere with busting) for 5 days before the mushrooms? [Edit: I now see that it took me so long to post this that CHfather and Mystina snuck in there and beat me to the punch. Good on them. ]

I'd go for some kidney pie with a side of liver'n onions, but fortunately for you I'm vegetarian, Ron! And thanks Jerry - of course there's always more to every story.....Ron has come through for me big time in the past in a way that required much more significant involvement and effort than my sending that email off! Pretty darn tootin' cool of Doc Goadsby to have actually responded immediately and personally like that wouldn't ya say?Â

Hey Kaboomski, Well last night (3 AM actually) I came across this thread and despite Ron's attempts to reassure us, I of course was pretty horrified by what's happening to Michael. You know how the mind races when it's emergency CH time, and the only thing I could think of was to email Peter Goadsby, the preeminent CH specialist, telling him what's been happening and making a desperate type plea for him to consider getting Michael into a trial of the latest "no implant" technology or something. The reality is that Michael traveling up to San Francisco isn't actually so do-able, but Doc Goadsby replied to my email immediately at 1 AM PST (!!!!) and wants to help somehow (his guy has also emailed Ron). So last I heard Ron hopes to get Goadsby consulting with Michael's current neuro and I imagine Ron's been busy faxing all kinda things'n stuff. Really hoping here that I haven't just loaded Ron up with a bunch of faxing busywork and that something positive can come out of it.Â

Hey Jfores, So glad to see you're getting double teamed by two of the finest responders known to clusterkind, and I'd like to pipe in with a big ditto regarding the good advice offered. Before I'm told to pipe down I'd like to mention that my personal experience with RC seeds is that doses of 50 or so before bed are non-intoxicating - especially because they typically just induce a better night's sleep than usual!Â