didgens

What if - Something causes vasodilation putting pressure on "a nerve" squeezing it and causing pain. The pain signal is then transferred to the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus registers the pain and in an effort to stop the pain sends out signals to the blood vessels to constrict. What if it is actually the hypothalamus that stops the CH, not starts it. a backwards theory to be sure. Perhaps seeds and shrooms put the "vaso constrict button" in the hypothalamus into a permanent ON position. Maybe they stop the blood vessels from ever dialating in the first place in response to X. X being what ever CH's individual triggers are. http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/limbicsystem.html

ah thanks here's more "basic info" which most here already know. http://www.patient.co.uk/health/cluster-headaches

HI Bob .. what is ECH ? Yes I do believe its genetic,, my husband suffers from SUNCT syndrome .. his grandfather Migraines. I want to add that on Saturday night around 1:30 am I came home late and my son was in the shower ,, when he came out I asked if he was having a CH ,, he said no ,, It was different ,, it went around the back of his head ,, he thought migraine ?? or just very bad headache .. low and behold we had a ginormous pressure drop and very strong Santa Ana Winds yesterday that continue today. There is definitely a barometric pressure connection with my son. CHF - sorry that was a mis-type that was supposed to read hypothalamus not trigimenal. my bad. The hypothalamus activity is just a reflection of the pain signal traveling to the brain.

Yes especially in areas where being "shut in" during the winter is a regular thing ,, (which is most of the middle of the country right now). Here in So Cal we are still in shorts. I have mentioned in the past that this starting "on average" in males around 19ish ,, gave me a weird (I know) thought ,, because my son was in marching band till he graduated high school he received MUCH sunlight, once out of high school he basically went vampire on me and stays up all night playing video games.. that's when his CH's started. less exposure to sunlight on a regular basis. So multiple triggers ,,, Barometric pressure,,, Food or Drink ,,, Lack of sufficient Vit D, low hormone levels. hmm so maybe all of these things cause vaso-dialation,, but if they cause vaso-dialiation in CH's I guarantee you they cause Vaso-dialation in normies ... why do CH's have pain ,, and normies don't. some argue its in the brain, some argue its structural. me I think there is a vein/artery oddly placed or bone structure that when dialated puts pressure on one of the ganglions. some people get really bad sciatica because the sciatic nerve runs behind the piriformis muscle. when that muscle "clinches" or tightens on the sciatic nerve it causes pain. Its not TRUE sciatica but the pain is the same.. I feel like this is what's happening.. ponder ponder

oh .. sorry ,, I wanted to add about the rats thing ,, I don't think using rats is a valid test unless these rats suffer cluster headaches .. since most of the population does not suffer from cluster headaches ,, testing random rats would be like testing random people. Now get a room full of CH's and lower the pressure and see what happens. Also that would tend to hold up my thinking that the pain is not eminating from the Trigimenal Nerve but the brains responding to it.Â

"It's a deep hole, once you climb into it" thanks for the ladder well the posts from the divers here support my thinking that pressure changes do in fact trigger clusters. Since every 33ft is another atmosphere. I would be very interested if diving while in the middle of a cluster headache would abort it. now that's just crazy talk because i'm sure the patient would drown in this experiment. flying in an airplane, going to the mountains, coming up from diving all change the pressure on the body and all seem to trigger CH's  AT TIMES. hmm the guy from New York talking about solar flares seems like a nutter right off the bat. but who knows. We have almost zero lightening days here in So Cal ,, but we do have days with a lot of "static" electricity in the air. Especially when the Santa Ana Winds come along. which explains cluster phases in Oct. Nov. now this year our Santa Anas came late ,, maybe why my sons CH phase came late. So Barometric pressure is going to change (drop) allowing for storms to get sucked into an area which may or may not discharge electricity but will most likely create "static" in the air. I think I will stick to the pressure angle since some divers here have confirmed it and I have seen my son suffer going to our mountain home at 7,000 ft. I just wonder now what the combination is. barometric pressure + allergens ?? barometric pressure + less sunlight (less vitamin D) that wouldn't explain spring clusters though. ok more reading

ok down the hole I go .. so odd to see the oxygen reference hmmmm http://www.relieve-migraine-headache.com/barometric-pressure-headache.html

ok .. so I did buy a box of this for my son months ago and told him to leave it on his desk and we would try it out next cluster phase... when I was talking to him about his acid reflux a week or so ago he said "well ,, I tried these" and held up this box .. I started cracking up .. I said "oh no ,, didn't you listen to me we were going to try those when you got back into cluster phase" ,, he said "oh ,, I don't remember you saying that" .. holy smokes these kids ... lol ,, I thought you might get a laugh ,, he said they didn't help his reflux anyway.

spiny so according to the state chart you went from mild CH (27) to no CH (14) to major CH (60) So maybe any state with a days of variation < 30 (maybe) might be better places to live ?? J ,, that's amazing ,, thank so much for that information. Do you remember how deep the dive was ?? so decreased pressure expands everything,, its like you created your own test there ,, that is tremendous confirmation ! thank you !!

20 Major U.S. Cities with the Least Barometric Variation (days per year of >= .20 changes) 1.Honolulu (0 days per year) 2.Miami (4) 3.San Diego (7) 4.Los Angeles (7) 5.Tampa (11) 6.San Jose (14) 7.Sacramento (18) 8.San Francisco (18) 9.Phoenix (22) 10.New Orleans (22) 11.Jacksonville (22) 12.Birmingham (29) 13.Houston (29) 14.Atlanta (37) 15.San Antonio (37) 16.Austin (37) 17.Memphis (44) 18.Las Vegas (47) 19.Little Rock (48) 20.Charleson (48) Not surprisingly, it is the southern cities which have the fewest days of variation. The “worst” list reinforces this theme: 20 U.S. Cities with the Most Barometric Variation (days per year of >= .20 changes) 1.Augusta, Maine (128 days per year) 2.Rapid City, SD (127) 3.Montpelier, VT (117) 4.Bismarck, ND (117) 5.Boston (116) 6.Colorado Springs (113) 7.Denver (110) 8.Billings, MT (109) 9.Providence (109) 10.New Haven (105) 11.Cheyenne (105) 12.Anchorage (104) 13.Detroit (102) 14.New York City (99) 15.Buffalo (98) 16.Minneapolis (98) 17.Omaha (94) 18.Chicago (91) 19.Philadelphia (90) 20.Baltimore (87) At the U.S. State Level, here is the complete list: 1.Hawaii (0) 2.Florida (14) 3.California (18) 4.Alabama (27) 5.Louisiana (27) 6.Mississippi (28) 7.Arizona (33) 8.Georgia (35) 9.Texas (45) 10.Tennessee (46) 11.Arkansas (46) 12.South Carolina (48) 13.Nevada (59) 14.North Carolina (60) 15.Oregon (61) 16.Kentucky (62) 17.Missouri (68) 18.New Mexico (72) 19.West Virginia (73) 20.Oklahoma (73) 21.Washington (75) 22.Illinois (78) 23.Virginia (78) 24.Indiana (80) 25.Utah (81) 26.Ohio (82) 27.Kansas (84) 28.Maryland (85) 29.Iowa (85) 30.Idaho (86) 31.Pennsylvania (89) 32.Delaware (89) 33.Wisconsin (92) 34.New Jersey (96) 35.Colorado (99) 36.Michigan (101) 37.Minnesota (101) 38.Alaska (101) 39.New York (102) 40.Nebraska (103) 41.Connecticut (106) 42.Rhode Island (107) 43.Wyoming (107) 44.Montana (108) 45.Massachusetts (111) 46.Vermont (112) 47.New Hampshire (115) 48.South Dakota (119) 49.North Dakota (120) 50.Maine (127)

http://blog.securevideo.com/tag/barometric-pressure-cities/

and lookey what I found reading this post .. hahaha Mic wrote at 2013-01-28 16:29:37 Dear Stephanie, I use water. Submerge yourself under the water in a full bathtub to change the pressure against my WHOLE body. If you have a hot tub it is even better. Hope this helps, you do have to put your head under the water too. If you hold your nose, it changes the pressure inside your sinus cavity as well as your head.

i'm not sure all these folks are migrane sufferes but worth a read anyway Meniere's Disease ? http://en.allexperts.com/q/Meteorology-Weather-668/f/Areas-Stable-Barometric-Pressure.htm

well I guess barometric pressure can change in the tropics as well ,, the drop brings in the hurricanes and monsoons. jet stream animation

ok so odd that you should mention a hyperbaric chamber.. an alternative would be to use this thing that high altitude climbers use which is sort of a portable hyperbaric chamber of sorts .. I have also thought about diving underwater ,, 33ft will put and additional atmosphere on the body and squeeze anything that is expanding causeing the pain .. anyone here a scuba diver ???? http://peakfreaks.com/gamowbag.htm

best of luck ,, hoping you get some relief .. I would recommend getting a tank though ,, it really has saved my son hours of pain.

Mylanta (or store generic brand) helps my son ,, some things help some don't its really individual so you should try all the brands to find what works for you.

Haz .. did I miss .. do you have O's ?

ya ,, I know ,, weird is my middle name .. ok so I was sitting in the bath tub this morning and it noticed something that hits me a couple times a year. My bath tub smells like chlorine. Yep .. chlorine.. So I start thinking ,, I know that the local water districts must do something to treat the water we get in the pipes because on numerous occasions over the decades I notice the chlorine smell in our water supply. They don't do this all the time ,, just some times .. and I wonder if it coincides with rainfall ,, ie. a bunch of rain just fell last week ,, bacteria levels increase with all the runoff into the water sources and the powers that be that measure such things say "hey ,, the bacteria is to high and we need to add more chlorine to the drinking water". any coincidence ?? also fluorine ,, I remember when my son was a child ,, my sons doctor wanted me to add fluoride drops to his water bottles as an infant because she said the town where we lived did not have fluoridated water. they added it to the water some years later ?? just thinking outside most box's.

where do you live tangerine ,, we are in Calif .. and my sons are close .. Oct/Nov .. then June/july also. ????

I did have some pie in the sky hopes that when my sons Wisdom teeth were removed he'd get relief ,, to no avail however,, he does tell me know that he can feel the pain back behind where the removed the wisdom teeth. I had read one post somewhere where it was suggested to put ice back on the joint in the back of the mouth (hinge area) inside the mouth between the upper and lower teeth .. my son said he thought it helped a bit but never continued once we got the o's

Hi Phil... so you are still episodic ? I am very interested then in how the busting affects you. My son Is also only episodic .. and only so far (knock wood) gets < 20 CH's a year. They just started for him about 3 years ago. I am super blessed to google around and found out what it was within a month or two so he didn't suffer for years. We did have a hard time with the first neuro ,, he wouldn't prescribe O's so we moved on.

tangerine ,, that's very interesting .. some claim that it comes with the "equinox" or changing of seasons.. but if you have moved from one hemisphere to another and your pattern stays the same then the "changing of the seasons" theory might not apply.

thanks Fab ,, (that was just a cut and paste actually) ,, I have a lot of "free time" at my job some days .. so go back and forth between researching Cluster Headaches for my Son ,,,, and sadly and more recently Lung Cancer Treatments for my husband,,, I'll just keep digging, maybe theres a buried treasure down there somewhere !!

Cervicogenic Headaches is a new term for me ?