CHfather

I have been very, very surprised that a product called Theraworx actually seems to help to quickly relieve my intense leg cramps. It's not preventive -- it's a cream or roll-on that you apply when the cramp begins (though sometimes I use it when I'm getting into bed at night as a possible preventive). It's just magnesium. Since it's topical and not consumed, maybe it wouldn't affect you as you have described. Amazon.com: Theraworx Relief for Muscle Cramps Foam Fast-Acting Muscle Spasm, Leg Soreness with Magnesium Sulfate - 7.1 oz - 1 Count : Health & Household I also concur with Jeebs that if you can find a form of magnesium pill that doesn't have negative effects, it would be good. I would say that oral magnesium has helped me more than potassium.

Stijn, I appreciate your non-defensive responses to questions! Language like this "The reason your CH cycle started..." kind of triggers me (in contrast to maybe something more like, "My hypothesis for the reason your CH cycle started...."). But, like I say, I admire your openness in interactions, and I admire the effort you are making to learn whether your theories hold true.

So, he is talking about cycles in 2018, 2020, and 2022. Does the sun change signs every year on August 17? If so, while that might "explain" those past cycles (or at least the 2020 and 2022 ones, since he doesn't say the 2018 cycle started on that day, and he probably would have mentioned that), what "explains" not having cycles at all in 2019 and 2021?

Batch has made this recommendation: I buy the bulk powdered vitamin C in 2 lb jar as shown below and stir two level teaspoon measures (8 grams) in 12 oz of water. I drink a gulp of this solution every two hours throughout the day until it is gone by bedtime. This is the least expensive form of vitamin C at 3 to 4 cents/gram. The liposomal vitamin C costs 8 to 9 cents/gram.

Given all the circumstances, it seems very unlikely that this is the issue, but I think it's almost universally true that the anesthetic that dentists typically use, Xylocaine + epinephrine, triggers CH attacks. (It's the epinephrine that does it.) But, among other things, the attacks usually come on more quickly than what you're describing, and of course you've had many previous dental procedures so it seems very likely you would have had the X+e during one of them. I think your next procedure with this oral surgeon won't be for quite a while, but I suppose you could request a different anesthetic just in case.

A small (I hope) hijacking. I've been reading more about Dr. Graham, who first provided the "leonine" characterization. Just thought these quotes about women were worth mentioning. "It's a man's disease," says Dr. Graham, and women who are afflicted with cluster headache tend to "act mannishly." What's new on heads and their aches? (This article recounts a couple of 1977 talks about CH at a conference. On one hand, they're pretty cringeworthy, and on the other they at least show some folks trying to figure out what to do about CH. (CH was considered just a subdivision of migraine until the 1960s -- which, depending on your age, might seem like a long time ago or pretty recent.) (In 1960, 5% of medical students were women.)) This is from 2006. I think it still took a long time after that to really acknowledge that many women have CH (and many doctors still don't seem to know that), but she (the author) was trying, at least. "Cluster headache is a notoriously painful and dramatic disorder. Unlike other pain disorders, which tend to affect women, cluster headache is thought to predominantly affect men. Drawing on ethnography, interviews with headache researchers, and an analysis of the medical literature, this article describes how this epidemiological “fact”—which recent research suggests may be overstated—has become the central clue used by researchers who study cluster headache, fundamentally shaping how they identify and talk about the disorder. Cluster headache presents an extreme case of medicalized masculinity, magnifying the processes of gendering and bringing into relief features of the world whose routine operation we might otherwise overlook." Uncovering the Man in Medicine - Joanna Kempner, 2006

This could be the photo in the dictionary next to "leonine"!!

Well, sticking with the Salamanca traits, I suppose one might imagine that you would see more smoking in a group of people who are more anxious, impulsive, paranoid, and OCDish than others (For example, "Those with higher obsessive compulsive symptoms report greater motivation to smoke for negative reinforcement, sensorimotor behavioral-ritualistic, habit/automaticity, and stimulation reasons." Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms and Cigarette Smoking: An Initial Cross-Sectional Test of Mechanisms of Co-Occurrence - PMC)

Indeed. I only put up my cat avatar because there was some joking I wasn't getting enough likes, and cats were a theme among the more-highly-liked posters. Never had a cat; never wanted one. But then again, it's very relevant here to note that I don't have CH (my daughter does). So you might want to take my scores (responder #3) off the spreadsheet. In 1969, a fellow wrote about CH patients' "leonine" appearance," and in 1974, the great Dr. Kudrow "confirmed" that observation. PHYSICAL AND PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS IN CLUSTER HEADACHE, Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain | 10.1111/j.1526-4610.1974.hed1304197.x | DeepDyve Kudrow also said there that his male CH patients were on average almost six feet tall, which was about three inches taller than the average American male. Questionable as all that might be, there is this spooky-seeming thing from 2021: "Frontal Bone Height and Facial Width were able to discriminate, one independently from the other, CH patients from Healthy Controls with an overall accuracy of 77.00%." (PDF) Can Craniometry Play a Role in Cluster Headache Diagnosis? A Pilot Exploratory TC-3D Based Study Well, I took the Salamanca test. As you say, it seems to leave a lot to be desired. For one thing, the questions/items on the survey do not seem to be well correlated with the actual traits they are supposed to be measuring. I'm guessing that there are two questions per category (there are 11 categories), and you get one point for "sometimes," two for "frequently," and three for "always." (The actual line between "sometimes" and "frequently" seems much blurrier to me than the line between "frequently" and "always.") My top three traits were schizoid, anancastic, and paranoid, all of which are in the CH top six. I also got the same score for "anxious" (also in their CH top six) as I did for anancastic, but somehow they decided that anancastic was in my top three but anxious wasn't. I have to say that by the "normal" definitions of these terms, I am not an anxious or paranoid person. So my four top answers were all in the six most common ones for people who actually have CH. No idea what that might mean about the validity of the findings/instrument.

It's a fascinating topic, but I am also strongly with you on this, Bosco'. I guess people would have to think about whether they have always had the identified traits. (Once after 18 months of severe back pain, my GP sent me to a pain management guy, who was also a psychiatrist. He administered a personality test (Minnesota Multiphasic) that among other things asked about pain frequency, intensity, and expectation of relief. The doc solemnly told me that I seemed to have a predisposition for hypochondria. I am a calm and polite person, but I lost it at that.)

You don't have to go that far away. We haven't seen the sun in Chicago for months.

FDA Approves Auto-Injector for Migraine, Cluster Headache | MedPage Today It says, "DHE can relieve pain associated with cluster headache attacks, particularly when administered intravenously." Of course, this is not an IV autoinjector.

You know to tell the dentist not to use epinephrine, I hope. It's a big trigger for many people. (As I understand it, it's added to Xylocaine because the epi reduces bleeding, so the actual anesthetic to avoid is Xylocaine+epinephrine.) This is from a post somewhere else: "Anesthetics containing epinephrine (such as Xylocaine) and nitrous oxide have been identified by some people as triggers. Ask your dentist to use something else: Prilocaine seems not to cause bad effects. Another person has mentioned carbocaine as an anesthetic that didn't trigger his CH."

DMT experiences and advice - Theory & Implementation - ClusterBusters