Hello Batch,

Amanda here updating about my friend in Mexico.

Her cycle has been less strong and is taking the D3, but seems to be lasting longer than usual. Her headaches always come about 2 years apart and last for 6 weeks.  This is just over 6 weeks now.  Is this common on the D3 regimen?

We finally decided to try an anti-histamine. There was only clorfenamina and loratadina in our village - we went with loratadina - at 10 mgs before bed.  The result - no headaches! WOW!  It´s only been one night so now we have to see.

One of the complications is that we want to try low histamine diet and continue with this but some of the foods in the D3 regime, like using cheese for the K2 interfere with that.  We don't have K2 vitamins in Mexico.

If you are taking an anti-histamine and the headaches go away - how long do you take it for? You said 1 week to 10 days when you wrote before... does that end the cycle then? Or could it potentially in her case (as it should be over now)? And how would we know?  And is 10 mgs enough?

That is a lot of questions there - I´d really appreciate your insights Batch.

Many thanks,
Amanda

Hey Amanda,

Thanks for the update on your friend.  I'm happy to hear the antihistamine was effective in jump starting vitamin D3's capacity to prevent CH.  I won't go into the biochemical explanation why or how this works... as you already know it works, that's the important part.

Cycle length while taking the anti-inflammatory regimen and how long to stay on the antihistamine are two good question. 

There's no real trend on cycle length for episodic CHers taking this regimen.  Some report a significantly shorter cycle and others say it lasted two weeks longer...  so it's basically a wash.  No real statistically significant trend.

A week to 10 days treatment with a first-generation antihistamine should be sufficient to enable vitamin D3 to exert and maintain it's CH preventative properties. 

That said, a week to 10 days is just a number...  If the CH return when your friend stops taking the antihistamine, just restart it and continue for another week to 10 days. 

There's really nothing wrong taking a first generation antihistamine for 6 to 8 weeks of an episodic cycle as long as you're not walking around like a zombie, half asleep in a constant fog...  If that's the case, cut the dose or space out the doses to a tablet every 7 to 8 hours and right before bed.

Regarding the vitamin K2 (MK4 and MK7).  You can order this over the Internet from iherb.com.  I order Super K with Advanced K2 Complex at the link below:

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Take care and please keep us posted.

V/R, Batch

Thank you so much Batch,

You say a few times "a first generation anti-histamine" - the one she is taking is actually a 2nd generation.  Is there any issue with that, would be better to switch to a first generation.

Iherb is great in that they ship world wide - but not so great in that they don´t know anything about the laws in Mexico and we have had out packages searched and confiscated.  I´m in Canada now so I am going to be driving down some vitamins and hope to get them in that way.

Finally - Trigeminal Neuralgia - does D3 work for that as well?

Many thanks!
Amanda