My name's Joe, Leah is my savior... I haven't gone through all the posts yet but here's my story... My clusters started about eight years ago, woke up in the middle of the night feeling like someone was driving a railroad spike from the top of my skull, through and behind my left eye and out the bottom of my jaw.. I thought I was having a stroke or an aneurysm. Ended up in ER having several tests and drugged to a stupor.. Long story short.. For four years from November through January or February I would get these terrible headaches... Midrin was my best friend.. The fifth year, first saturday of November, middle of the night, BAM.. Then something clicked... The only thing I had done different that day from every day prior was eat deer meat... I went to the doc, we went through the charts and every cycle began the first of nov. and ended three to four months later. ( about the time the deer meat would run out).. I quit eating it and I quit getting the headaches,,, till last year... This time the cycle started in may.. Hadn't been around deer meat and went eight months having them before I found the trigger... I love chicken, been eating it all my life!! Barbqued, fried, in dumplings, enchiladas, any way you cook it, I'll fill my plate... Finding the trigger happened by accident.. Just happened that Leah went out of town for a couple weeks and with my job I lived off TV dinners and burgers... Got off early one day and fired up the grill and put some chicken halves on smothered in special sauce... Wham, that night I took a trip to ER... So now, chicken and deer are off my menus... And I don't have the clusters... I get tension headaches sometimes, but as long as I leave those two meats alone, I don't have to eat relpax or drive down the highway with my head out the window running my fingernails across my scalp( the only thing that gives me any relief till the pax kicks in)...

If you are willing to present yourself to a headache specialist and he confirms these triggers, you would be on way to the medical history books!

A quick scan of the medical literature on food as triggers revealed very little (over a span of nearly 40-years) and most material was focused on migriane  and foods. Cluster was a rare mention.

This is the only substantive report I found.
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Ear Nose Throat J. 1994 Apr;73(4):228-30, 235-6.
Neurogenic vascular headaches, food and chemical triggers.
Trotsky MB.
University of Nebraska College of Medicine, Lincoln.

Abstract
Recent evidence has demonstrated that neurogenic vascular headaches are a combination of neurological primary events and secondary vasomotor changes. The neurological events involve the hypothalamus and sensory cortex with sympathetic hypofunction and noradrenergic abnormalities. A platelet theory has been proposed but has not really been confirmed as a legitimate cause of the neurogenic vascular headaches. FOOD AND CHEMICALS IN FOODS CAN ACT AS A PRECIPITATING FACTOR IN THE FOOD-SENSITIVE NEUROGENIC VASCULAR HEADACHE PATIENT. In these patients evidence is now being demonstrated to confirm this, but larger patient studies are needed. THE FOOD-SENSITIVE MIGRAINE PATIENT AND CLUSTER HEADACHE PATIENT MUST GIVE A GOOD HISTORY AND FOOD DIARY TO GO ALONG WITH ACTIVE CHALLENGES AND PROVOCATIVE TESTING IN ORDER TO DETERMINE THE CAUSATIVE FOODS. Any concomitant allergies of inhalants or environmentals must also be treated.

THE TREATMENT MODALITIES OF ELIMINATION AND ROTATION DIETS OR PROVOCATION NEUTRALIZATION MAY SUCCESSFULLY CONTROL THE HEADACHES WITHOUT THE NEED FOR CONTINUOUS MEDICATIONS.

PMID:7912670[PubMed]

Hi Joe and welcome

Really interesting info about the food link for your CH.

Tell us more about what you take to prevent CHs and what you take to kill any that get through.

Mike, it's not what I take, it's what I don't consume... It took four years to figure out deer meat triggered them.. During those four years I didn't even know there was a such thing as a cluster headache... I just knew that in the fall I'd wake up with the worst pain I'd ever felt... It's like someone is driving a spike through the top of my skull right behind my left eye, all the way through the roof of my mouth... Always the same side, not always in my sleep, but over fifty percent of the time... The only way I could cope would be to get in my truck and drive down a back road with my head hanging out the window... Scratching my scalp with fingernails or a brush helped too... Back then there was midrin or duridrin, something like that, the drug would ease it in about 20 minutes... Seemed the pills made me light sensitive but I would have gladly gone blind to stop those headaches... I was in my forties when they started and was an avid hunter and consumed deer meat my whole life... It was a stroke of luck figuring out the deer meat... After months without one, then hitting me that night and figuring the only thing different I had done was to eat deer meat... The reason I it took so long to figure out chicken did it was because I'm a huge chicken fan, (I'm like a crack addict for hot wings)... I eat chicken three to six times a week, or did... I'm no doctor, and my family practitioner and the neurologist I went to only seemed to want to prescribe pills for when they hit... Relpax was the last thing I'd taken.... But, if I don't eat chicken or deer meat I don't get them, if I eat either, I'm toast... Since chicken started triggering them last year at age 50, I figure its just a matter of time till something else starts triggering them...

Bob, I don't know who I could present my case to... Leah and I watch my diet, I'm a big ol country boy from Texas and I love to eat... I know deer meat does it, and I know, through sneaking a box of KFC, that chicken does it... I decided to join this site after reading the posts from others thinking maybe some on here could watch what the ate or was around when their season clusters started... The pain from those things sometimes make death seem welcome, and if food, to pollen, or some other chemical can be traced down and identified by other members then maybe a few more on here can live without the pain...
I do not miss having those things at all...

LOCATING HEADACHE SPECIALIST

1. Yellow Pages phone book: look for "Headache Clinics" in the M.D. section and look under "neurologist" where some docs will list speciality areas of practice.

2.  Call your hospital/medical center. They often have an office to assist in finding a physician. You may have to ask for the social worker/patient advocate.

3. START PRINTPAGEMultimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or END PRINTPAGE; On-line screen to find a physician.

4. START PRINTPAGEMultimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or END PRINTPAGE Look for "Physician Finder" search box. They will send a list of M.D.s for your state.I suggest using this source for several reasons: first, we have read several messages from people who, even seeing neurologists, are unhappy with the quality of care and ATTITUDES they have encountered; second, the clinical director of the Jefferson (Philadelphia) Headache Clinic said, in late 1999, that upwards of 40%+ of U.S. doctors have poor training in treating headache and/or hold attitudes about headache ("hysterical female disorder") which block them from sympathetic and effective work with the patient; third, it's necessary to find a doctor who has experience, skill, and a set of attitudes which give hope of success. This is the best method I know of to find such a physician.

5. START PRINTPAGEMultimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or END PRINTPAGE NEW certification program for "Headache Medicine" by the United Council for Neurologic Subspecialties, an independent, non-profit, professional medical organization.
        Since this is a new program, the initial listing is limited and so it should be checked each time you have an interest in locating a headache doctor.
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The past paragraph of that report suggests an approach which may give you total relief. In any case, working with a doc who has training/experience with complelx headache disorders gives the best potential for relief.
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                       CLUSTER HEADACHE HELP AND SUPPORT › GETTING TO KNOW YA › NEWBIES, HELP US...HELP YOU

Hey Joe,

It's wonderful being pain free of cluster headaches...  We know the feeling.

You might want to give the anti-inflammatory regimen with 10,000 IU/day a try.  Give it a couple weeks then do a chicken check...  You might be surprised...

You can find what you need to know about this regimen at the following link:

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

If you pass the chicken check... you might want to start Leah on the same regimen...  My wife doesn't have CH but she was a chronic migraineur...  She started taking this regimen in December 2010...  Hasn't had a migraine headache since.

She takes 15,000 IU/day vitamin D3 along with the rest of the regimen and loves it..  She feels younger, looks younger and has more energy than I've seen in 20 years...  She also kicked the heck out of 75 last December... 

On top of that... neither of us has had the flu or a bad cold since starting this regimen... and we've had all six grand kids trying to inoculate us with their colds for the first year...  We started them on vitamin D3 last year...  colds are now a thing of the past for them...  Go figure...

Take care,

V/R, Batch