SurvivingCH

For me, there have definitely been year-to-year changes in the frequency and intensity of cycles and attacks. Four years ago, I had three cycles in a single year, and the cycles also lasted about 2 weeks longer than usual (despite verapamil). Last year, I did not have a single cycle. One important thing I noticed is that my headaches get worse (longer cycles, more often, more intense) when my cardio fitness is low. The difference between four years ago and last year is that I have lost around 10kg due to changes in diet and exercise (especially running and swimming). The improvement makes sense to me because, after all, it is my cardiovascular system that moves around oxygen in my body during an attack. The better my cardio fitness, the better my body can move around oxygen.

@Krios239 Sorry to hear about the attacks coming back. One thing that has not been mentioned yet in this thread is cardio exercise. The frequency and severity of my attacks got really bad when my fitness level went down. Running several times a week for at least 25 minutes really helped me to manage attacks. For me, it is certainly not a replacement for all the other stuff (verapamil, oxygen, etc), but the cardio exercise helps me to keep my fitness level up and since doing that a few years ago remission periods have been longer for me. Similar to others, I also found that I can sometimes stop an attack in its onset if I immediately go for 5km run. Some people do jumping jacks instead.

I had some positive experience in preventing attacks during a cycle with exercise, and in particular swimming. Once, I might have been trying to push it too hard though when I realized there was an attack coming and thought I could stop it with swimming (there is a public pool just a few hundred meters from my house, so I can get there really quickly within a few minutes). What seems to be working quite well though is running. It does not always work, but I was able to stop an attack during onset when immediately going out for a 5km run (about 25 minutes). I assume running works better than swimming for me because of the upright body position during running and the ability to get more oxygen in at higher heart rates. I try not to go to high though with the heart rate, but rather try to keep it at around 130-150bpm for at least 25 minutes.