Hello, really glad to have found this site. I can tell it is going to be a great help to me. Great info and just knowing that there are people out there who go through the same issues I do.

Please take a look and give me some feedback if you can. I'm completely open at this point to try anything new. The inside of my bathroom door isn't going to make it past this cycle if I don't figure something out.

I'm 51 and in my second year of diagnosed CH. Last year my cycle ended right around the winter equinox, this year it started, much stronger, after the equinox.

I take a multi vitamin (old man vitamin), 5000 units D3, 100 mg Topamax twice daily, and have some serequeol on hand for sleeping at nite that I don't take when cycling since it's just wasteful. My O2 is the small 1742 liter size with the crappy mask (ordering one from the store soon); I swapped it out this morning. It lasted a little less than 72 hours. I hoard whatever migrinal I can get my hands on for when I'm away from my oxygen. Use ice packs with the O2 and standing under a very hot shower seems to help me quite a bit. I keep a log of headaches/details.

In the last seven days I've had from 3 to seven starts a day. I've basically been close to home those days and been able to handle all of these pretty well except the the waker uppers. Every nite I get one that is too far along to stop it. Nothing stops it. Migrinal is just a waste at these times.

I'm an insulin dependant diabetic. Have no health insurance at this time. Collect unemployment until June. A little bit of stress, but I'm actually in a great mental space for me. I pulled the bottle away from my lips on Dec 26 and weaned myself completely off the effexor I was taking (originally for anxiety) and have a clean and clear mind. I don't think the lack of these two items have anything to do with my CH?

Thanks in advance for your help.

HI JSM!
Welcome to the board!

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That's the spirit Mate!...a lot of this shit is fought from within too!

Are you using the recommended flow rate for your O2?

Partner in Pain

Respect

Gary

justshootme wrote on Feb 21^st, 2011 at 4:13pm:


I don't think the lack of those two has anything to do with your CH either. 

The more you hang around with us here, the more you'll notice that Guiseppi/Joe goes right for the jugular . He will hit you right off with some tremendously good suggestions, gleaned from years of seeing what really really works for people, so I suggest absorbing everything he throws out there. 

Besides the high flow O2 and clusterbusters approach, both of which have made such a  difference for so many clusterheads now, you could consider melatonin (over the counter), starting at 9 mg, going up as high as 21 mg before bed. it does knock out the night hits for some of our CH brethren. And sistren. 

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By bottle I assume you mean alcohol? Most of us (but not all of us) find alcohol is an instant trigger for a hit. Staying away from it while in cycle, or if chronic, can at least avoid that triggering event. Stress can also be a trigger, and coming off anything to which we've become accustomed, or habituated, can be stressful. All in all, though, it looks like you're on the right path. Pleasant dreams, and blessings! lance