Oxyrunner, Julie,

More success stories...  We're starting to get the statistically significant numbers needed to grab attention among the leaders in the field of neurology specializing in CH... 

This is good!  In the mean time, we still have a few who are not experiencing the same favorable results from this regimen as others so I don't want to be too exuberant.  That said, it does appear we're on to a very healthy and inexpensive alternative when it comes to CH preventatives.

I'm still running the numbers and so far it looks like this regimen is well ahead of verapamil in effectiveness at better than 70% effective.  The Cluster Headache survey that 1134 of us took in 2008 indicates 371 CH'ers out of the 725 (49.7%) who took verapamil, rated it effective.

Brew,

I'm half Scott/Scotch and a member of the Over the Hill Gang on a mostly fixed income so I look for good deals.  I figure my daily cost of the combined regimen of Omega 3 Fish Oil, vitamin D3, and calcium citrate+ shown below at 16 cents. 

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I buy these items at Costco.  Sam's Club has some of these vitamins and minerals under Member's Mark label.  You can buy the Kirkland brand over the Internet from Amazon or go to Puritan's Pride web site. They carry the same items.

Costco has the best deal on the 5,000 IU vitamin D3 softgels
$6.99 after $2 OFF Trunature® Vitamin D3 5000 IU Extra-strength 500 Softgels  < 3 cents/day 20 cents/week

Sam's Club:
Member's Mark® Vitamin D-3 5000 IU - 400 softgels  $10.68  < 6 cents/day, <38 cents/week

Puritan's Pride SUNVITE™ MAXIMUM STRENGTH VITAMIN D (D-3) 5000 IU
500 softgels for $14 <6 cents/day,  <40 cents/week

Hope this helps.

Take care,

V/R, Batch

ClosetCHer,

Thanks for the kind words.  I share your dislike for the invasive CH meds.  As long as I've had oxygen at high enough flow rates to make for rapid aborts, I've always preferred instead to give my body what it needs to get well instead of what I wanted to prevent the pain.

Good luck with this regimen...

Take care,

V/R, Batch

Lance, ClosetCHer,

From the studies and articles I've read and data collected so far it appears the maintenance dosage for vitamin D3 is between 2,000I.U. and 5,000I.U.   I tend to agree with Dr Peter Lewis, MD from down under that 5,000I.U. of vitamin D3 is a good maintenance dose and that 10,000I.U. is a reasonable therapeutic dose with no reports of toxicity as long as there is sufficient calcium supplements taken at the same time.

From the data collected from CH'ers who are using this regimen, it appears that most of them are responding to the 10,000I.U. dose of vitamin D3 with measurable relief by 16 to 24 hours and significant relief by 40 to 48 hours with the most significant area of relief reported being a PF night's sleep.

Increasing the vitamin D3 dose above 10,000I.U. to improve the CH response has us in uncharted waters at this point.  There's just not enough data to support higher dosing rates one way or the other to improve the CH response. 

Granted there are physicians prescribing vitamin D3 as high as two doses of 50,000I.U. a week without any adverse reactions for other conditions.  However, this is usually done under controlled conditions with blood tests for the vitamin D3 metabolite, 25(OH)D3 and calcium to make sure the calcium supplements are sufficient to maintain proper levels.

If you think the full regimen of Omega 3 Fish Oil, vitamin D3, and the calcium citrate tablets with vitamin D, magnesium, and zinc is helping your CH and you want to increase the vitamin D3 dosage to improve the response, the best course of action would be to see your physician and ask for the 25(OH)D3 blood test.  The Vitamin D Council recommends that optimal health is supported by blood levels of 50-80 ng/mL (125-200nmol/L) as identified in a 25(OH)D3 vitamin D blood test.   Get this test along with a regular blood electrolyte test to make sure your calcium level is ok then repeat these tests after a month of higher vitamin D3 dosing.

If your initial vitamin D3 blood test for 25(OH)D3 shows you in the normal range of 50-80 ng/mL (125-200nmol/L), increasing the vitamin D3 dosage may not be necessary as your problem may be a low systemic pH.  In that case I would add another calcium citrate tablet to the basic regimen and start drinking homemade lemonade a couple times a day.  I've found that Baja Bob's sugar free Margarita mix works effectively as it has additional citric acid.

Hope this helps.

Take care,

V/R, Batch

Hey Primetime,

Thanks for the update...  I hope the pattern improves now that you're up to therapeutic dosing levels of vitamin D3

Niels, you're quite correct, vitamin D3 increases calcium absorption in the gut and serum so will help add calcium to bone matter.  I also agree the vitamin D3 co-factors are important as well and that's why I take the calcium citrate formulated with vitamin D3, magnesium and zinc...  That's why NIH recommends taking calcium supplements with vitamin D3 to improve bone mass and prevent osteoporosis. 

The Institute of Medicine also lists the Dietary Reference Intakes for Calcium and Vitamin D3 at 1000mg./day for men and 1200mg./day for women (1300mg./day if lactating) while taking 4000I.U./day vitamin D3.

The problem pointed out by the Vitamin D3 Council occurs with the higher therapeutic doses of vitamin D3 and minimal intake of calcium from all sources.  They agree vitamin D3 increases calcium absorption in the gut and that this leads to higher serum levels of calcium for bone development, but they also opine that in the absence of the needed calcium intake from food and supplements the opposite can occur.

If you read through the studies on vitamin D3 from deficiencies to mega-dose regiments ≥100,000I.U./week, there appears to be a pattern that too much or too little vitamin D3 can lead to osteoporosis.

As an example, one such study done in Australia where women ≥ 70 years of age were given a single dose of 500,000I.U. during the Fall through Winter time and a control group of women in the same age group were given a placebo.

The women taking the mega-dose of vitamin D3 suffered 31% more falls and 26% more bone fractures than women in the control group taking the placebo.  While one might be tempted to assume from these results too much vitamin D3 leads to osteoporosis, there may be other explanations for the increase in bone fractures...

While vitamin D3 dosing at this level has little to do with how we're trying to reduce the frequency and severity of our CH with the present regimen, the results of this study beg more questions than answers to the question is a lot more vitamin D3 better...  For example, the increase in falls could be due to vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) intoxication.  The increase in falls could also be due to an increase in physical activity made possible by the vitamin D3 or a combination of both.  In short, this study leaves me with more questions than answers...

In closing there are two things to take away from this discussion as I see it, (1) we all need at least 1000mg. to 1200mg. of calcium from all sources a day.  (2) We also need to be critical when looking at the results and conclusions of clinical studies as it is easy to find similar studies arriving at different and sometimes opposing conclusions...

Take care,

V/R, Batch