Hey Dauber,

Great question. The first thing I would suggest is find an immunologist or endocrinologist expert in treating patients with vitamin D3 deficiencies...  I would also hold off on taking vitamin D3 supplements... but take the rest of the anti-inflammatory regimen.

A key discriminator if a vitamin D3 allergy is suspected, is cutaneous vitamin D3...  In other words, if exposure to the UVB in sunshine without sunblock does not produce an allergic reaction, look for another cause of the allergic reaction and try to get as much sunshine as possible without sunblock.

Hope this helps.

Take care,

V/R, Batch

Hey Ksenia,

Glad to hear you're doing the happy dance and that your husband is enjoying the benefits of the anti-inflammatory regimen.

The short and belated answer to both of your earlier questions in this thread is yes... The anti-inflammatory regimen as your husband was taking it, was likely contributing to his heart palpitations... and insufficient  magnesium was likely the culprit. Please let me explain my answers.

The problem is your husband was not getting enough magnesium compared to his calcium intake.  This regimen calls for a minimum of 400 mg/day.  What happened was the extra vitamin D3 he was taking during the loading schedule was consuming the available magnesium, taking it out of the blood serum solution...

That created a calcium - magnesium imbalance with more calcium than magnesium in the blood serum.  As calcium is essential in muscle contraction and magnesium is equally essential in muscle relaxation, your husband's heat muscles were not relaxing fast enough and this was more than likely the cause of his heart palpitations.

The solution is simple if this happens again...  Have your husband take a second 250 mg Jamieson Magnesium tablet in the morning and don't change anything else.  I'm assuming your husband is taking the rest of the regimen in with the evening meal.  Splitting the magnesium doses by 6 to 8 hours should help prevent osmotic diarrhea... loose as a goose... and stop the palpitations.

Attributing causality to the cessation of your husband's CH after starting the anti-inflammatory regimen as an episodic CH'er is always a problem when that cessation occurs near the end of a "normal" cycle.  In other words, was it the regimen or just end of cycle?

The best way of determining causality in this case is to have your husband stay on this regimen year round.   That way when the next cycle comes around it should be a non-event.

Staying on this regimen year round has many other health advantages that are too good to pass up.  The risks of prostate cancer, Alzheimer's and a long list of other health issues are significantly reduced if people maintain a 25(OH)D above 60 ng/mL.  Have you started this regimen?

MJ, regarding the HA Specialist saying your response to this regimen was due to a placebo effect...  Horse Feathers! 

The placebo effect for cluster headache is very low compared to other medical problems...  for obvious reasons.... You can't wish away CH or prevent them with sugar pills...

With a raw efficacy of 60% for a sustained pain free end point response to the anti-inflammatory regimen in preventing CH, this response is well beyond the highest possible placebo effect in CH of 14% to 43%.  The lowest value was reported using the strict endpoint; cessation of headache attacks.  Nilsson Remahl AI, Laudon Meyer E, Cordonnier C, Goadsby PJ. Placebo response in cluster headache trials: a review. Cephalalgia. 2003 Sep;23(7):504-10.

In other words... the odds are better than 4 to 1 the cessation of your CH was due to the anti-inflammatory regimen.  Show the above link to your HA specialist...

For the old timers reading this... you'll note that the good doctor Peter Goadsby was a contributor in this article.

Take care and please keep us posted.

V/R, Batch