Left vs Right

[spiny]

Small question here. Based on another thread, some of us have 'vivid dreams' as an advance warning system. Others do not.

My question is: Do you have this precursor of vivid dreams before a cycle?

And: Are you a left or right CHer?

I am a leftie. I do not have these dreams. 

While I do not think the being a left handed person or a right handed person matters, it could be interesting to gather the info on that too. Yes, it has been done before. I know.

Personally, I was left handed and had it forced on me to be right handed as a young (3-4 years old) child.

And, in the interest of full disclosure, I first started having CH exactly three months after a concussion from a blow to the side of my head. I was quite surprised to be told that the delay is very common and rather standard.

[ThatHurtsMyHead]

Spiny,

Vivid dreamer here - They start approx 1 week before the CH comes.  I'm a Righty handed and Righty CH.

My CH also started after both a head injury and having been given an experimental drug in the Army Lariam (which has a side effect of causing vivid dreams, oh yea and permanent psychosis (Lost one guy in our unit to the funny farm.  He went completely nuts a few weeks after starting Lariam with the rest of us). 

OH SNAP - Just decided to go out and read any updates on lariam..  Looks like they've done a lot more research on it since I last looked.  Absolutely positive my vivid dreams are directly linked to the Lariam.

From Wikipedia:

Neurologic and psychiatric

Neuropsychiatric effects are reported with mefloquine use.[1] The FDA product guide states it can cause mental health problems, including anxiety, hallucinations, depression, unusual behavior, and suicidal ideations, among others.[8] Some have reported severe central nervous system events requiring hospitalization in about one in 10,000 people taking mefloquine for malaria prevention, with milder events (e.g., dizziness, headache, insomnia, and vivid dreams) in up to 25%.[9] When some measure of subjective severity is applied to the rating of adverse events, about 11-17% of travelers are incapacitated to some degree.[4]

Psychiatric side effects can include anxiety, feelings of mistrust towards others (paranoia), seeing or hearing things that are not there (hallucinations), depression, restlessness, confusion, and behavior that is unusual.[10] These psychiatric problems may last for years after the patient stops taking the drug.[11] Mefloquine has been found to act as an agonist at 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C receptors, which are the targets of psychedelic drugs such as LSD, and it has been suggested this may be partly responsible for the neuropsychiatric side effects.[12]

Amazing the FDA ever approved it (and is still available for prescription!) after all the bad stuff that happened in my unit.

J

[didgens]

my son right handed .. right cluster ,, don't know about the dreams .. but used to do headers in soccer

[MoxieGirl]

I always have pretty vivid dreams, granted I'm chronic. 

But, I do also tend to write down my dreams (although I've fallen out of habit lately), and practice lucid dreaming from time to time. I've never connected dreams or dreaming to clusters except for when I'm having a cluster attack in a dream, then wake up to find it wasn't a dream.

I swap from left to right, never knowing which side the next attack will come on. You know how no one is perfectly symmetrical, one side is always slightly larger than the other, or has thicker hair growth, etc. For me, that is my left side. My left side is also more sensitive, and clusters on the left are always more painful than on the right, sometimes several times more painful. My worst most terrifying clusters are always left sided ones.

MG

[Bejeeber]

Whoa J, that is seriously disturbing about Lariam. 

Me: Right handed, right clustered, haven't noticed a pattern of vivid dreams prior to CH cycle onset (just because I didn't pay attention doesn't mean it didn't happen though).

[CHfather]

Lariam is an anti-malaria drug. My daughter took it when she studied for a year in a third-world country.  The effects on her were very, very bad.

[ThatHurtsMyHead]

CHF,

Yea Lariam is seriously bad stuff.  I was part of the Army experimental study, I see they actually list in the wikipedia overview of lariam now.  The complete BS sham of it all is they never took blood work, interviewed us.. Absolutely nothing.  They made us take it and carted away the guys that went nuts...  Had to stand in formation as they handed out our daily pills and each platoon LT had to watch each soldier swallow the pills and check our mouths afterward.  Was degrading to say the least.

I'm curious if your daughters CH started after or before the lariam?  (and if she has vivid dreams also?)

J

[ThatHurtsMyHead]

Spiny,

oh I just thought about our similar Lefty / Righty situation.  I hadn't thought about it for years, but I also had somewhat of a forced R/L change.  I'm a righty, but about the same time as my CH started (while in the Army).  I was training to shoot left handed.  Daily practice shooting both right, then switching to left.  I got as good shooting left as I did right (pistol and riffle).  Only bad thing about shooting an M16 lefty is getting hit in the face with hot brass...  OUCH and not fun.... 

J

[CHfather]

I'm curious if your daughters CH started after or before the lariam?(and if she has vivid dreams also?)

I have really not sat down with her to think through what symptoms she had before she started getting troubling attacks. Unlike a lot of people, her CH came on gradually, with what she thought at first were just unusually painful headaches.  It ramped up for her after some dental work unrelated to her "headaches" (that is, not, as with some people with CH, as an attempt to treat her "headaches," just a routine root canal).  The first time she talked to me about her "headaches" was at least six or seven years after she had taken the lariam -- but she might have been having them before then.  She doesn't really like to talk about her CH. 

Mostly, the lariam messed with her head psychologically. Compounded by the fact that she was in a very, very different culture and pretty much living by herself there.  She was not given much warning about the psychological effects of lariam, so she blamed herself for the problems she was having.

Yes, she has vivid dreams, but again, I can't say whether they foretell a CH cycle. 

      

[spiny]

getting hit in the face with hot brass... 

Yes, hot brass burns like hades!!!!!  They do have deflectors now for lefties.  Watched a lefty use one of my pups and the brass went right down his overalls. He did a little dance with the devil for a moment. Weak hand with a handgun is easy, but not with a rifle. Rifle is a brain strain. I bet that I would get a hit just straining to do it correctly!!!!!!!

Mefloquine has been found to act as an agonist at 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C receptors, which are the targets of psychedelic drugs such as LSD

That is a bit crazy don't ya think?

That is totally disgusting about the Lariam.  > They popped our GI's with tons, well exaggerating a bit, of untested garbage in the last 10-20 years.

Think on this - I used to take quinine for restless leg syndrome. Now they refuse to prescribe it. They have new expensive meds for that after all. So, I drink tonic water now. Works great. But, why take something old and proven away? Money. Did they think I would not find it at the grocery? Guess not. Morons.

How soon after your head injury did your CH start?

[spiny]

CHF

I started out as a low level chronic. Stayed there for several years. Had a great remission. Then, I got a much more painful picture of what had happened to my head. So far, episodic. My cycle went up to eight months of the year.

Summers off were great though!

[alleyoop]

So, I drink tonic water now.

Me too spiny, along with a squeeze of lime and some good vodka. 

[weatherman]

spiny,

The connection between dreaming and CH should be THOROUGHLY studied.

Good information (although listed as purely hypothetical and based on conjecture) is this article;

https://www.clusterheadaches.com/cb/yabbfiles/Attachments/CH__Dreaming___Neurogenesis.pdf

I started vivid dreaming at the onset of CH, about 5 years ago.  The memory and intensity of "the dream experience" seemed to become more noticeable and increase as CH became part of me.

Right handed

Left side CH, chronic with no head injuries

No probable connection for me between dreams and onset of "high" cycle times.

THMH .... WHOA! That Larium has the most wicked list of psychiatric, gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, hematologic, dermatologic and nervous system side-effects I have ever seen.  I can't imaging what that experience was like?

weatherman  8-)

[spiny]

alley,

Only Potato vodka - not that grain wannabe, right? Chopins is really good, but don't taint it with tonic!  ;D

weatherman,

I will read that one. Thanks. I do not dream now unless I fall asleep during the day. Then it is not a dream but an OBE. I have had three. The last one scared the snot out of me. The ending was me rising up and the whole scene receding into nothingness. I was hoarse for the rest of the day because the event required hollering for help. The other two were pleasant.

[Bejeeber]

Ooh - OBE! Now THOSE sound like some serious adventures, I'll take 2 pleasant ones to go please.  8-)

[spiny]

They have been Jeebs. But, if ya see the black cat (my dear departed Charlie), just stay home!!!!!!!! He was there again on the fourth one and I woke up intentionally. Decided it was a sign to stay home.

However, if the bluebirds pick you up on the sheet you are lying on and head out the door with ya it will be beautiful!  [smiley=engel017.gif]

[CHfather]

Good information (although listed as purely hypothetical and based on conjecture) is this article; https://www.clusterheadaches.com/cb/yabbfiles/Attachments/CH__Dreaming___Neurogenesis

Thank's, w'man.  Interesting!  I see alleyoop is the first person thanked at the end here, along with Bob Wold.  The only other name I recognize there is Pinky.  I wonder if the author (Peter May?) is possibly posting among us even now?  [i see that the link doesn't carry forward above.  Here it is again: https://www.clusterheadaches.com/cb/yabbfiles/Attachments/CH__Dreaming___Neurogenesis.pdf]

Slightly related, this study released today about scientists finding a way to reduce memory loss caused by sleep deprivation.  The kind of thing that gives me hope that the brain-centered aspects of CH might one day be understood and treated.  http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/health-science/item/75644-penn-scientists-find-way-to-prevent-memory-loss-after-sleep-deprivation-  (For those of you who doubted a study I reported earlier because it was based on mice -- you know who you are!  > -- most brain studies in mice have very good carryover into humans.  But of course the huge issues are whether anyone is interested and is financially able to carry out the next-level studies, and ultimately whether anyone sees enough potential financial gain to develop something commercially.)

[diamondmaker]

Right handed, left CH, no noticeable dream stuff, no head trauma.

My mom still thinks to this day that it was "all the drugs I took" when I was young (starting at 10 with cigarettes, then alcohol)... and I did take a lot. BUT, LSD and pot were my drugs of choice (13-17), and I didn't start getting CH till about 6 months after I decided to rejoin society and stopped everything. So my read on that is "all the drugs I took" was most likely helping me more than hurting me.

[spiny]

Excellent article weatherman! It makes you want to learn more about that pine cone. 

Now, if you head is triggered by REM and wakes you up, you don't get any. That makes you 'different' from your normal self.

Personally in cycle I do not have time to enter REM as the first hit comes within 15 minutes of sleep. All night. Which, for me at least, separates REM from CH. It cannot be an activator or contributor. But lack of REM sure is affecting me then.

Not that this is about the article. It is just about sleep and me.

Interesting that many responders are lefties!! I always thought that they were in a minority (big minority) on the site.

We know that being a lefty forced to righty can cause stuttering due to the structure of the brain. I wonder in what other ways does it show the strain of coping? Heads?

[alleyoop]

Right handed

Left eye CH with no switching to date

Vivid dreaming from time to time, but no correlation that I am aware of.  If you want to have really vivid dreams, try taking Chantix, which I did at one time to quit smoking.

A couple of head traumas prior to CCH onset.

[Fabalicious]

Left handed - Right CH (mostly)

Vivid dreams 3-4 x per week (maybe because I am chronic?)

No head trauma, but moderate physical, and severe emotional and psychological trauma.

[spiny]

  Tally: 9 responders 8 answers

Ch     Ep.     Chr.     E/C     Dreams     Hand     Trauma   

                             C/E                                  Head

L                            C/E     NO             RT        YES

R       E                             YES            RT        YES

R       E                              ?               RT          ?

BOTH           C                   YES             ?           ?

L                  C                   YES           RT         NO 

L                  C                   NO            RT         NO

L                            C/E      NO            RT         YES

R       E                              YES           RT         YES

BOTH            C                   YES           LT          NO

Hmmmmm.................

Fabac - You are out of sync here!!! Righty head and Lefty hand????  ;D

Lets continue and see how this plays out? I would like to.

So far, it seems that those who are episodic with vivid dreams have an advantage the rest of episodics don't. Also, that chronics have vivid dreams in more than 50% of the reports.

      

      

[ToniEvo]

Right handed.

Left side pain.

Sometimes switches to right.

Plenty of head/neck injuries and concussion as a child.  First Migraine attack followed concussion...

Emotional/psychological trauma.

Vivid dreams (never noticed if these are linked though)

[spiny]

Thanks Toni!!

I too have had many concussions in my distant past. Well, I did have another one in late October when the dog ran into my head with his!!!  ;D Otherwise, it had been over twenty years since the last one.

I will update soon!

[Ripper]

Left side clusters only

Right handed

I was diagnosed in 2009 and I'm episodic

I've been having vivid dreams lately and I'm coming up on winter solstice.

Nothing like the dreams I had on Chantix...those were seriously vivid.

I have never had a head our neck injury but my first recollection of a headache as severe as a cluster was in college when I did way to many amphetamines and shut down cold turkey.

I'll post after Dec. 21st with dream/cycle results.