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Stopping Episodic Cluster Headaches


Leo Sticinski
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I feel compelled to post this so maybe it may help someone. I have suffered with Episodic Clusters for 25 year. My most recent attack started 2 months ago. I have been on emgality, verapamil, and divalproex. To break the clusters I went to 150 milligrams of prednisone, stopped taking divalproex, and started lithium. I was unable to break this cycle. As I started to titrate off of the prednisone I became desperate. For 25 years I have drank diet coke and diet pepsi. I stopped drinking diet coke/pepsi and in addition started taking apple cider vinegar with a little bit of honey and water twice a day. After 2 days my headaches stopped. Even my occasional after noon naps I did not wake up with a headache.....Then wanting to have something bubbly I bought a sparking water. My headaches came back! I didn't realize it had sucralose in it. I immediately stopped and my headaches have not come back..I don't want to give anyone false hope but if this can help somebody I would be happy.  I back tracked to when my cluster began and realized I used to drink diet coke after playing racquetball. My wife told me how stupid I was drinking a diuretic after working out..I have read somewhere that sucralose and aspartame are not triggers but I don't agree.

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hi Leo...welcome to the boat....

......aspartame is vasoactive and a distinct trigger for me... same as MSG in all its ubiquitous, mostly hidden forms.....none of the other artificial sweeteners, like sucralose, but folks with sensitivities to such would not surprise me.....

....have always believed a log of CH hits and cycles...recording timing, weather, location, and what you were doing and ingesting preceding same... can be determinative in narrowing down one's particular triggers. know of one doc who uses as a diagnostic tool the fact that cluster patients seem to do logging almost compulsively. makes sense as we try to figure out the beast...... 

best

jonathan

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