Clusterheadaches.com Message Board


    
      
        Clusterheadaches.com Message Board
        (http://www.clusterheadaches.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi)
      

        New Message Board Archives >> Medications, Treatments, Therapies 2003 >> First time caller, long time listener   :)
        
(Message started by: Yos on Oct 21^st, 2003, 6:42pm)

Title: First time caller, long time listener :)
Post by Yos on Oct 21^st, 2003, 6:42pm

I have been reading the board here for a long time, although I'll admit that I'm kind of a fair weather friend - or in this case a foul weather friend - and usually only read when I'm in a cycle. I plan on changing that though.

Like many of us, this board has given me immeasurable comfort in times that little else has, so I figured it was time to crawl out of my hole and actually post.

I have been episodic since I was about 16 or 17, so I guess that makes about 16 years. I didn't get a diagnosis or any real relief until about 4 years ago when my doc tried imitrex.

Also around that time he put me on a calcium channel blocker to end a cycle. That worked pretty well for a couple cycles, then stopped. Then it was Depakote, and that has seemed to work each cycle since then at a very low dose (250mg 2x day). I would then go off of it after several weeks when I figured the cycle was over. When I would start to get a few shadows, I would start up again, and usually it would kick in before I was in a full cycle. However this cycle that seems to not be doing the trick, and I was getting hit 8 to 12 times a day even after 2 weeks on the Depakote, so up to 500mg 2x day and that has cut it way down. One or maybe 2 a day. That plus the Imitrex and I'm still kickin', albeit with some bruised thighs.

One thing I would like to ask people is about moving from episodic to chronic. My cycles used to be once a year like clockwork - every mid December until about late Jan early Feb. After I started taking Depakote, I started getting another cycle in August, and now they have become pretty unpredictable and I have no idea when they will start. Have other people experienced this? Does this sound like a move from Episodic to Chronic?

Well, that's me. Hello to all and thanks for contributing your stories and results here.

Oh, and sorry for the tasteless picture - I couldn't resist! ;)

Yos

Title: Re: First time caller, long time listener :)
Post by vig on Oct 21^st, 2003, 6:58pm

Hey Yos.

Sounds like you bought tickets for the same roller coaster. I was episodic first... the cycles began extending and then new seasons would start. Pretty soon there wasn't any time in between. It IS a progressive disease. I was prescribed Depakote to 'break' the cycles, but I refused. I tried the clusterbusters.com. It doesn't work for everyone, but for the few.... PHEW

and yes, we like pictures... even the gross ones.

Title: Re: First time caller, long time listener :)
Post by Yos on Oct 21^st, 2003, 8:49pm

Vig - why refuse Depakote? Is it that bad? I've never had any side effects from it. Only bad thing is it seems to be lessening in its effect. That certainly seems to be a sad, reoccuring theme here...