Hi everyone,
What a warm welcome I've got here
I'll start replying to everyone in one message, it will be the easiest way.
@ Linda_Howell: Well, it's not like he always wakes me up on purpose. I always wake up when he leaves the bed, and when I'm awake I could better help him, well, that's what I think. The last active period was better for me, 'cause I'm a stay at home mum now, so I could get some sleep in the afternoon when the kids were resting, before I was working too, so I was always tired. Plus with the medication he gets, he gets panic attacks and I need to help him calm down. Normally he can't take pain medications, but now he has too for his clusters.
He takes preventive medication, don't know if you know the names, we live in belgium so it might be other names than you are used to. He takes Nocertone in the period before his active clusters. He feels when it is going to start and this medications helps for a while to keep the headaches away. The moment he has it's first it doesn't help anymore. For abortive medication he has Zomig. In Belgium you can't get the oxygen at home. I asked the doctor but because it's 12 liters per minute it's to much to have at home and he has to go to the ER everytime. I'm looking into it, to see if it really needs to be that much, if less is good too, we might get it at home, but I need to persuade my doctor with facts, so that's also why I'm here.
@ Guiseppi: he has two active periods per year, one in springtime and one around the holidays. We never celebrated christmas without a cluster attack. Luckily my family knows that he has it, so that makes it easier to go to the family get together. My stepfather had it too when he was younger, so he really understands. He found an alternative doctor that helped him, and now I'm trying to get my husband to make an appointment with him, but he's not into that kind of thing, maybe he should be.
@ clustersufferer: I read it somewhere. It doesn't work for everybody, but normally he has in his peek periods of his active period up to 8 attacks a day, now the biggest number was 4. Plus, he normally doesn't drink a lot, maybe two glasses a day and not even water. The doctor told him before he needed to drink more for his health, so maybe it is kinda related. We'll see. He's drinking more water these days, even now his period is over. Maybe his next period will be less strong. He does smoke, but will smoke less in his active periods. Sometimes when he lights up a cigarette the attack will start, not always, but sometimes, so he thinks it's related to that too. He doesn't have cafeďne either during his active periods. He is a very active person, can't sit still for one second.
You know, the primary reason why we are looking for a 'healthy' cure for his condition is this: we are scared that our two boys (ages 3, almost 4, and 2) will get it too and I we find something that helps for him, we might be able to control it with the boys if they have it too.
Okay, I think I have everything now.
Buy for now,
Leslie