My  Los Angeles  neurologist who specializes in migraines and clusters, reports an uptick in cluster patients  over the past year.  The theory is this could be caused by stress due to disruption in the film/tv industry during the recent writer's strike, or it could be a stress response to the current economic melt-down.

Has anyone else noticed a cluster surge?

m

Your neuro is a keeper, he knows the cause of clusters.  The cure can't be far away now.


                 

Mike_E wrote on Aug 16^th, 2008 at 3:32pm:



Hey Mike, just my opinion, but I think your neuro's theory is just that... a theory. I find it amusing, really, and I agree with Brian. With all the things that cause us stress, a strike in the film making industry? Ueli is right, a cure can't be far behind...

AlienSpaceGuy wrote on Aug 16^th, 2008 at 4:12pm:


LMAO!

Thanx for that.
Pascal.

I think your neuro's assessment of the situation is off base - but Gary's 02 supplier has seen a "very large" increase in the number of 02 scrips for clusters each year for the past five years.  I think this is due to neuros finally understanding 02 helps abort these things.  First neuro Gary saw never even mentioned it.

While stress may cause attacks some times and for some people, if stress caused clusters, everyone here would be taking valium and/or practicing yoga.

Laurie

Srry and i am no actor, but your doctor putting us and them in the same boat is an insult in my mind.
I agree this site may bring closet suffers out for help and hypocondriacs something new to have. its a double edge sword.
no  i am not deminshing your pain or you but i have had it up to my neck with doctor's and the theories.
sorry doctor's are a sore point with me.
pf day's to you friend, i was just venting a little.

You may want to consider the logical fact that with the explosion of the internet as an instantly gratifying source of information could be the reason so many more cluster heads don’t go 10-15 years without proper diagnosis any more.

The people in LA are no doubt trying to put a class action law suit together so they can get work comp for their voluntary time off striking.

Rolo…

Statistics is a often a subject best left in the hands of professionals....

Garys_Girl wrote on Aug 16^th, 2008 at 6:46pm:


Well, I think what we all can agree on - at least from what I've read here on the message board - is that each of us has different triggers, cycles, levels of intensity, treatments and so forth. I also live in LA and visit a local neurologist knowledgeable about our condition. He's said nothing to me about clusters of clusters, whether strike-induced or not. He did indicate that he felt that stress was definitely a factor.

Again, I can only speak personally. But after 4 cycle-free years I had my first one again this past spring. It coincided, as I've mentioned in earlier posts, with a major event in my life - my brother telling me he needed heart surgery. Certainly this may not have had anything to do with my cycle and there will never be a way to determine it unequivocally. But I'm the worrying type, he's my last immediate family member, and... well, you fill in the rest.

Now, to the strike-induced cl. of cl. issue. I agree, it sounds preposterous and perhaps - given everything else people around the world are going through and the generally coddled nature of the film industry (at least at the upper echelons) - even insulting.

But I note that the poster lives in Santa Monica, which does indeed have a sizable population of movie and TV industry types. I also note that, living here and being a writer, and therefore having kept perhaps a bit more abreast of the strike than the casual reader of these posts, it did indeed cause great financial hardship for a lot of people. Understand, I'm making no value judgment about the causes of the strike or its resolution, nor its importance or lack thereof to world events. But people lost their homes, their health insurance and so forth, certainly stressful events. Coupled with the greater knowledge (I hope!) about our condition out there in General Doctorland, and maybe even teased a bit by people trying to get in the last hurrah examinations (and having time to do so, moreover) by their GPs and so forth before their insurance flew south for the winter...

Anyway one Santa Monica neurologist might well have seen an extra CH patient or two as a result and, voila!, a theory is born.

Of course I could be full of shit about all of this.

David

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clusterstopper wrote on Aug 18^th, 2008 at 6:30am:

You are just so darned cute when you're impersonating a doctor.

BarbaraD wrote on Aug 18^th, 2008 at 7:48am:


Barbara, just you wait until the actors go out in a few weeks. Why, baristas in Starbucks from Brentwood to Malibu will quake! Porsche mechanics all over town will be cutting back on their Hawaiian vacations! We'll all.... we'll all... be forced to watch actual re-runs!