I hope this isn't the last we hear from the good Dr. Hakim will all the problems in Egypt. 

It would be interesting to see the results of a similar study of chronic cluster headache sufferers refractory to pharmacological management being treated with Omega 3 Fish Oil, vitamin D3 and calcium citrate supplementation.

If it worked, it would appear to be a preferable alternative to taking warfarin (coumadin), a.k.a. rat poison.

Take care,

V/R, Batch

I'm working on it now.

CHfather,

Thank you for the kind words, but we're still a long way from getting the anti-inflammatory regimen into a clinical trial. 

It took a lot of hard work and a quarter million dollars to get the demand valve method of oxygen therapy that uses flow rates that support hyperventilation into a formal pilot study...  and that was three years after we collected enough statistically significant data on 366 aborts to prove it's efficacy and safety with abort times that rivaled imitrex injections, but without any adverse effects.

I'm far from harboring any notion the anti-inflammatory regimen is fully effective...  I know better.  Granted this is little more than an uncontrolled survey and some of the success can easily be attributed to other medications still being taken or an end of cycle for the episodic CH'ers.  That said that, this regimen continues to demonstrate a raw efficacy of 80% with either a significant reduction in the frequency and severity of CH, or a CH pain free remission. 

What we've also found of equal interest in the information gained from CH'ers who have not had a significant improvement with this anti-inflammatory regimen after more than a week, is that they all share one or more of the same comorbidities. 

These comorbid disorders include cardiac, renal, and thyroid insufficiencies as well as COPD and diabetes.  Moreover, these same CH'ers also tend to be refractory to other CH preventatives and abortives. 

There appears to be concurrence on at least some of the disorders we noted as a multivariate analysis conducted by Zidverc–Trajkovi JJ et al. and reported in an article titled Comorbidities in cluster headache and migraine, Acta Neurologica Belgica, 04/18/2011, where they found chronic sinusitis and diabetes mellitus, adjusted by gender, age and duration of headache, are more frequently associated with cluster headache(CH) than with migraine.

The interesting thing about the comorbid disorders we've noted with respect to the anti-inflammatory regimen is they all have the potential to lower arterial pH. 

The sinusitis reported by Zidverc–Trajkovi JJ et al. is also of interest as it may be an indication of an inflammatory reaction that could easily encompass the sphenopalatine ganglion and possibly spread to the trigeminal ganglion as the two nerve bundles are directly connected to each other by a branch of the trigeminal nerve.

What all this points out to me, is that as cluster headache sufferers, we need to make sure a more holistic approach is taken in treating our disorder to include looking at other comorbid disorders that can easily prevent CH medications from working effectively.  In short, unless the comorbid disorders are treated at the same time, it's entirely possible the medications prescribed for our CH will not have the desired therapeutic effect.  Some food for thought...

Take care,

V/R, Batch