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New Message Board Archives >> Medications, Treatments, Therapies 2003 >> Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
(Message started by: dcg on Jan 12th, 2003, 7:04am)

Title: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by dcg on Jan 12th, 2003, 7:04am
Hello,

I'm a 27 male and suffer from CH sindrome since 1999 (aprox. 3 years ago). I have just one question for you, guys: Have you ever noticed that a hangover will make "the beast" not to show up?

To be more explicit, let's say that am in a cycle. I usually have just one headache between 11 and 1 o'clock daytime. But if a drink 3-6 beers (0.5L per botlle) at evening and fall asleep with my belly full of beer (enough for me to have a hangover next day) the beast will never visit me the next day. And I say NEVER, no exception here. I'm not talking only about a bad hangover, a slight hangover will do the trick also. Any thoughts, comments? I'm the only one having this "gift"?

Cheers and may the devil never visit you again! ::) ;D

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by ave on Jan 12th, 2003, 8:11am
No you are not the only one. It is the same with me. But others will get an attack so fast, they're unable to open another bottle (except by smashing it against their skull, possibly...).

So as usual what works for one does not always work for another.

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by dcg on Jan 12th, 2003, 5:08pm
THX for the prompt reply, ave!

I just want to make myself clear: I don't say that I can abort an ongoing atack just by drinking beer. I drink in the evening and I go to sleep knowing that the next day I will NOT have a visit from my beloved friend... the beast, as you call it.

But I think that you understood what I was saying from the first time..just wanting to be sure.

Now, i wonder what my phisician will have to say about it. I'm almost ashame to talk about it especially when I know what he will say: no alcohool, whatsoever.

Other than that I'm like you guys: sometimes a bottle of beer will bring a promt atack  :'( and sometimes not -especially if I already had one atack earlier that day (my norm beeing a single atack per day ususally at noon).

Regards!

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by dcg on Jan 12th, 2003, 5:10pm
PS: I want to add that I already searched the forum for the keyword "hangover" and I didn't find someone with the same "feature"  ;D

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by Linda_Howell on Jan 12th, 2003, 5:42pm
Hang-over, huh?   What a great way to keep the beast at bay............NOT!

      Any alcohol will bring on the beast.......unless, like me and you're chronic.  

Drink.....headache.
not drink.....headache...

Hoping you're episodic.    Linda

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by BobG on Jan 12th, 2003, 5:50pm
I haven't had a drop of alcohol since Valentine's Day 1985 and I'm not about to try for a hangover now.

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by dcg on Jan 12th, 2003, 6:00pm
Chronic? Maybe. I had a cycle last summer around June. (that time I didn't knew what kind of illness I have) The headaches went away (coincidence) after a double surgery (nasal sept deviation & left maxilar synus). Please, excuse my poor english. Of course, I was missdiagnosticated and the pains blew in full force in decembre 02. But I'm not positive that I had not an atack ot two (maybe three) between that two periods of time :-/. Today was the first day headache free and the first day of treatment (concidence again).

To make the long story short:

Drink => headache, maybe.
After drink => hangover = NO headache.

And that is the only constant I could dig up from 3 years of cluster headache condition.

Cheers all!

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by dcg on Jan 12th, 2003, 6:08pm

on 01/12/03 at 17:50:13, BobG wrote:
I haven't had a drop of alcohol since Valentine's Day 1985 and I'm not about to try for a hangover now.


Of course I don't advice anyone to try somethink like that (maybe the most disperate cases  ;D J/K). But I know only since 09. ianuary 2003 :) when I went to a neuro the name of the disease and I had 3 full years of life time to experient what brings the headaches (?) and what blocks them without knowing what is wrong with my head and that alcoohol is a NO-No option. So I'm asking for thouse of you with good memory :)

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by dcg on Jan 13th, 2003, 4:03am
OK, look what I found:

http://www.clusterheadaches.com/wwwboard/messages2/108490.html

Looks like Im not the only one:


[copy/paste]

"Posted by Darren Clarke (194.196.100.51) on August 28, 2001 at 10:30:43:

I have lived with cluster headaches now for ... oh must be about 15 years. I was 14 when they started and am now 29.

I have tried numerous things currently I am taking cyproheptadine daily. I decided long ago they weren't going to rule my life, so I still almost daily spend an amount of time in pain between 10 and 60 minutes. I have had very little extended amounts of time over the years headache free. I find the cyproheptadine just takes the edge off.

Anyway I discovered long ago that a definate trigger is one or two alcoholic drinks but if that couple of drinks is followed by a few more and I wake the next morning with a slight hangover I am 100 percent sure not to get a cluster headache that day. (I understand this is a dangerous precendence to set and I have never drunk to prevent headaches and anyway Im more likely to trigger a headache after the first couple anyway)

I was really wondering if anyone else had this experience and/or an explanation?

I have just recently been on holiday to a much warmer climate and I made a concious descision to stop taking the cyprohetadine (I realise not the best medical descion but when you suffer with and without, Im sure I can handle any withdrawl)and try a new idea that I had read about which is these nose strips while you are in bed. If you have seen the american football players or Robbie Fowler (An english footballer) they wear these strips across their nose intended to help them breathe better. (Has been proved there is no athletic benefit)
A theory I read was that cluster headaches could be caused by sleep apnea, that is stopping breathing for short periods while asleep and wearing these strips stopped this.

The thing is while I was away I had one cluster headache in a 2 week period ... ONE. It was fantastic. I'm still not taking the cyproheptadine after a week back and using the nose strips nightly but I'm not sure what it was that lead to this restbite as I have never gone this length with so few
was it the climate , the nose strip, change of sleep pattern. I did drink a bit more than I do at home alcohol at night and water during the day.
Since I've been back I have had 2 this week but compare to before 5/6 a week its heaven.

Anybody with opinions I would be interested. In the mean time fingers crossed it continues.

Hope people don't mind me sharing my experiences. "


Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by jmorgan52 on Jan 13th, 2003, 2:04pm
I am too wary of drinking alcohol during cluster cycles to risk trying the "hangover cure". This was after many years of trial and error until I discovered that if I took a drink I would get a CH wityhin 30 mins. Not so easy to make the connection when I used to drink beer most nights!

Maybe the dehydration that contributes to the hangover due to a slightly shrunken brain is the cause of your relief. How bad a hangover are we talking about here? I reckon you can't have 2 headaches at once.??? Some of my past hangovers have been on a par with a CH. Especially the 2 day long hangovers 8)
J

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by dcg on Jan 14th, 2003, 2:12am
I'm talking about slight hangovers here. My head doesn't have to hurt because of the drinks. A "I'm not so freash" feeling is just what it takes. Of course, bad hangovers work too.  ;D

As for your thought about dehydratation... It contradicts the water,  water, water trick (never tried it, anyway).

"reckon you can't have 2 headaches at once"... Maybe somehow the brain isn't feeling so relaxed and fresh to call the beast...

Till now I found 4 persons (includeing myself) saying that the hangovers works... Aren't here any pills or something else to "call" a hangover?  ???

Have a  pain free day, everybody!

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by jmorgan52 on Jan 14th, 2003, 2:25am
ok so we are talking just a few beers or so here, may 3 or 4?

If only I could drink them without bring on the ch!

Last cluster I was 4 days into prednisone and had no HA for about 3 days. I went out for dinner with friends and drank 2 glasses of wine (very restrained!) and got an attack while waiting for the desert! I had to shoot up with imigran (thank god I brought it with me) and then was a pain free dead loss zombie for the rest of the evening.

J

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by dcg on Jan 14th, 2003, 2:44am
Let's say that 3 beers is the golden number ;) Sometimes two beers are enough but I have to go to sleep with my belly full of beer. You know, hangovers aren't strictly related with the number of beers (or alcooho as a matter of fact) drunken.  Going to sleep somehow drunk can trigger a small hangover too.

Edit: I know that drinking can bring an imediate atack but I don't think that alcoohol is the culprit. The quilty factor ;D seems to be the relaxation that usually follows an ice cold beer drunken on a sunny afternoon ;) Have you ever thought about this before?

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by jmorgan52 on Jan 14th, 2003, 3:39am
yes I had thought of the relaxation factor with beer as the cause, but how to prevent the relaxation is the big question? I did experiment many years ago and found that drinking scotch had less tendancy to bring on the beast, but I still got some shadows. Maybe the answer is to just drink them fast to get a bit drunk quickly and miss out on the "booze cruise high" stage?
;D

J

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by dcg on Jan 14th, 2003, 3:51am
Sing, start a fight with somebody (a verbal fight, eventually), watch a TV show that always makes you mad, try to talk with your wife about important matters of everyday life  ::) , talk about you work, curse your boss, play Russian rulette, count your money, whatever it takes. You figure it out...  ;D

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by K. on Jan 14th, 2003, 11:07pm
Slight hangovers may work but don't go too far. I am episodic...drank way too much for New Year's eve...and I am in cycle now.  :'( The bad thing is my cycles last 11 weeks with up to 4 attacks daily. The headaches can last for hours without meds.

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by jmorgan52 on Jan 15th, 2003, 1:26am
welcome to the glum club K.

Your cycles sound just like mine. I have had quite cycles a few over the festive season in the past and it is the worst time when all around are having fun, you feel like dying. I seem to get them around easter the last few years which is slightly easier on the social scene. Thankfully I have been HA free since last May. Just hoping it lasts on my current self designed "anti-headache" food regime.

J

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by dcg on Jan 15th, 2003, 2:30am
Be carefull, K.

I couldn't find a precise connection between cycles (not headaches!) and alcoohol. I almost never have more then one atack per day usually at noon. So I can drink on evening without worrying too much. I also remember that my last cycle ended last summer litterary when I was I vacantion and drunk every day. How could a long lasting cycle end into a 'festive' season? But this may not work for everybody...
Remember, nobody knows the real cause of CH. There were times when doctors recomended to people for every kind of illness not to take a bath, not to open windows and to drop some blood?

Take care, all of you!

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by jmorgan52 on Jan 15th, 2003, 2:51am
I don't believe the CH are caused by Alcohol or "Festive Seasons". Mine just seem to start in November or March or June which may be "climate seasonal". I used to think my HA started when air pressure changes but not so sure now. It is just that when I am in cycle I know a drink will start me off.

I have had CH for around 30 years starting in my early 20's and migraines and headaches since childhood.

DCG, when I was your age long, long ago my HA's used to come in the summer around mid-day most days. I used to get 1 a day at most. They lasted for 4 hours or more. As I got older the patterns have changed a lot. In my mid/late 30's I got many a day which went after and hour or so and then came back an hour or 2 later. In my 40's I found imigran which changed everything. I now get them at 11am or 3pm or 11pm or 3am during the cycle and go for 12-24 hours or more HA free after the injection. If I "tough it out" they last for up to 6 hours and subside with residual throbbing and shadows for up to 12 hours afterwards.

BUT if I drink booze in small or large quantities it sets me off in 30 mins no matter what time it is.
J

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by b.bop on Jan 15th, 2003, 4:18pm
I didn't realise it before, but now that I go back and think about it I've never gotten a clusterheadache whilst being hungover... Yay! Be back soon, just gotta go buy a bottle of vodka...  ;)

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by brain_cramps on Jan 15th, 2003, 4:43pm
WOW!    I can't believe what I'm reading here.  Maybe just a bit of OVERKILL???    Sounds like putting a gun in your mouth when a toothpick would have got that last bit of lunch!

just my 2 cents worth!

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by b.bop on Jan 15th, 2003, 4:47pm
I hope no-one took me seriously,my bottle-o-vodka comment was just a joke. I'm really getting a botlle of bourbon :)

Title: Re: Hangovers work for me. Never fail.
Post by dcg on Jan 16th, 2003, 1:58am

on 01/15/03 at 16:18:18, b.bop wrote:
I didn't realise it before, but now that I go back and think about it I've never gotten a clusterheadache whilst being hungover... Yay! Be back soon, just gotta go buy a bottle of vodka...  ;)


I see you are 21 of age. When did your headaches start and when where you diagnostiged as a CH sufferer?

Again, sorry for the bad English :-[



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