Bejeeber

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

I like the sounda that! ;D Agreed with Ron about the 20-25 seed thingy.

Just so ya know - The RC seeds are legal to order and to possess. If you yell out the window to a cop "hey look I'm ingesting some RC seeds right now, and it's illegal to do so!!" then I suppose he might feel obligated to investigate, although certainly it's not something cops are on the lookout for (?). I doubt they know or have reason to care what RC is. And hey the 100% legal D3 regimen has some chronics even reporting going into remission and is likely good for you regardless, so if you can spring for the ingredients at your drug store, here's the link detailing it: http://www.clusterheadaches.com/cb/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1314134804 Sorry to hear about the dreaded unemployment thing - y'all certainly aren't alone! :'(

What Ron said! You seriously do need some good news, and fortunately there's plenty of that to go around here regarding CH and busting. My personal experience is that the attacks can become more severe as the decades with CH go by (not sure whether that was predetermined, or if prednisone etc. made them worse), but I ain't complainin' about it now since an angel type swooped in and helped me bust my last impending episode away. Yep there can be some nausea from mushrooms or even the otherwise very mild acting Rivea Corymbosa seeds that have gained some real popularity, but in my case at least it hasn't been strong enough to cause the actual barfy McBarf barf action. I bet you anything that yes you were indeed pain free during the wild years due to the fact that you were busting without realizing it - which I think of as a good sign that busting could work for you again. 8-)

He must've been hoping there were some pheromones in his horrible BO that would attract you on an unconscious level if he got you to sniff them long enough.  ;D

Here's the one Brew was passing around at the OUCH conference:

What Potter said.

Oh LORDYÂ LOL.

Agreed - I place the AMA in my *credibility shot* category and I sure as heck take anything coming from their ilk with a large sized grain of salt. Jumbo sized even. :-?

Fill it to the rim with Brim!

I figure 100 could be good but will defer to other forum member's insights on this. In the past when ordering I've found that about twice as many as ordered were actually supplied, which was a welcome surprise. 8-)

Does Jose per chance have a baby sitter who is a stripper and takes him to work with her? ;D