Hi Everyone,

My name's Ben, I was a member here many moons ago and I still recall how welcome I was made to feel by your community's universal hospitality. I wish I had taken the opportunity to contribute more at that time but my ongoing battle with CH's finally came to head (excuse the pun) just months short of my graduation.

My symptoms didn't seem to match the traditional pattern of either episodic or chronic CH's (that is to say, mine simply grew more frequent over the course of 3 years without any apparent remission periods) and in my arrogance, I just assumed that I could overcome my ailment through sheer force of will - oh how wrong I was!

I tried pressing my temples in a vice like grip which only seemed to prolongue the symptoms, I tried driking copious amounts of water to no effect, I tried submerging my head in a basin of cold water with mixed results. Then one day, I resorted to 'drowning' my symptoms with excessive alcohol and ironically it seemed to help but at a rather hideous cost - namely to my self-esteem!

At this point, I was two sheets to the wind and virtually a 24 hr CH'er, roughly one every two hours throughout day and night. My long-suffering parents, having not heard from me for a week, promptly drove down to my digs, packed up my kit and shipped me off to our holiday retreat abroad.

There, I attempted to impose some semblence of order on my chaotic and somewhat surreal life and took the opportunity to seek medical council. My first prescription was for beta-blockers which gave me a welcome 1 week relief before the CH's came back with a vengeance. I continued the prescription for three weeks until I got back to civilisation where I spoke to my local GP who prescribed 'Pizotifen' to me. I also started on a course of 'Feverfew' as a natural bolster.

Since then, I have slowly been recovering and even now I can't believe my good fortune but I'm conscious that on any occasion when I have tried to reduce my dose, the symptoms immediately start to return. I still get faint 'shadows' fairly frequently but I've found that applying a light pressure to the both sides of the neck near the garotted artery has helped assuage some of the more persistent bouts.

Anyway, I hope that I can contribute to the community in some way and I look forward to making new friends and spreading the message of solidarity.

Ben :D

p.s. Sorry for any obvious grammatical oversights, I never was very good composing texts.

Welcome back to the boards, couple of new things. Read the oxygen link, we've changed HOW we use it and have dramatically increased its speed and success rate:

START PRINTPAGEMultimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or END PRINTPAGE

Then go to the medications section, check out the post:

123 pain free days and i think I know why

A daily vitamin and mineral supplement that's providing a lot of relief to people.

Joe

Hi there and welcome back....

Just gotta say something...what you did, not the drinking thing, but thinking you could fight this with sheer force of will, is probably something that each of us, after seeing too many drs to count, have tried to do. There are times when that is all we can do, and to be honest, I think every single person with CH, whether on this board or not, has to be the strongest people in the world. We go through this horrible issue, we have to live our lives, even when in excruciating pain, the world does not stop even when that would be the best thing. Those of us with kids, those of us with jobs, those dont go away simply because we need them to, so believe me when I say this.....you are sooooooo not alone -hugs-

Guiseppi wrote on Nov 24^th, 2011 at 11:52pm:

Welcome back to the boards, couple of new things. Read the oxygen link, we've changed HOW we use it and have dramatically increased its speed and success rate: START PRINTPAGEMultimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or END PRINTPAGE Then go to the medications section, check out the post: 123 pain free days and i think I know why A daily vitamin and mineral supplement that's providing a lot of relief to people. Joe

Thank you for the warm welcome and the update Joel, things really do seem to have developed since I was last here. You guys and girls have obviously been putting a lot of time and effort into furthering our collective interests - I think when the world's political demagogy decide to pursue world world peace, I'm going to suggest they just come here and leave it you. haha

Also, having a bit of trouble finding that 123 pain free days - sounds really promising!!! I'll keep searching (only woke up 5 mins ago so frontal lobe isn't yet functioning. :P).


Virginia wrote on Nov 25^th, 2011 at 12:33am:

Hi there and welcome back.... Just gotta say something...what you did, not the drinking thing, but thinking you could fight this with sheer force of will, is probably something that each of us, after seeing too many drs to count, have tried to do. There are times when that is all we can do, and to be honest, I think every single person with CH, whether on this board or not, has to be the strongest people in the world. We go through this horrible issue, we have to live our lives, even when in excruciating pain, the world does not stop even when that would be the best thing. Those of us with kids, those of us with jobs, those dont go away simply because we need them to, so believe me when I say this.....you are sooooooo not alone -hugs-

Hi Virginia,

What a touching thing to say, thank you for your kind words and thank you for being such an attentive support base. Yes, the drink was a unmitigated disaster and I'm not proud but then I think my ego needed some humiliation - perhaps these things have a purpose. I know one thing and that is that I've never met such an empathetic community and it's probably no coincidence.

The people I admire most are those people like yourself who face the trauma with such fortitude irrespective of your social and domestic obligations. I'm not sure I could cope with demands of being a father, holding down a conventional job (I remember having several attacks whilst on calls to customers in my last job - I was a vegetable) AND enduring the assaults we know all too well.

So thank you again Virginia and I pray that you find lasting relief from the Beast! :)

The 123 days thread is semi-hiding as it's now on the second page of the medications area.

START PRINTPAGEMultimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or END PRINTPAGE

Moderators - perhaps this should now be made a sticky or even added as a link to the left hand side?

I'm not sure if we could solve world peace or similar issues, but we could probably as a group make a good attempt at it.

As to us being empathetic, I think that is down to the nature of the beast. Anyone who has CHs or supports someone with them knows just what their impact is, especially at first when so many have had initially imperfect treatment and very limited knowledge. This forum is amazingly good at getting people from that state to one where they have a much better understanding of CH and how to go about getting better treatment. It's no wonder we are eager to share this knowledge.