Hey Krys,

BINGO!  Your husband's doctor may be on to something...

Over the last 5 years we've discovered there are several comorbid disorders that when present, tend to adversely affect cluster headache preventatives and abortives including oxygen therapy making them less effective.

As these disorders all have the capacity to lower arterial/systemic pH making it more acidic, it appears that this lower pH may be a common thread and factor responsible for the more frequent and severe CH.

Comorbid disorders that may affect CH include:
   •      Cardiac insufficiency
   •      Renal insufficiency
   •      Thyroid conditions
   •      Diabetes (ketoacidosis)
   •      COPD

What we found in talking with CH'ers who also suffer from one or more these disorders is they all tend to have greater difficulty in finding the right combination of treatments to manage their CH than others.   They also tend to experience CH cycles (both ECH'ers and CCH'ers) marked with a higher frequency of more sever CH.  Many also complained their CH appeared to last much longer than normal and that oxygen therapy took a long time to abort their attacks if it worked at all.

The calcium citrate and lemonade buffering regimen can help combat a low arterial pH caused by diet.  However if the low pH condition is caused by one of the comorbid disorders, the pH may be so low, that simple changes in diet will be ineffective in elevating the pH back up into the higher part of the normal range.

Talk to your husband's doctor about the relationship between his thyroid condition and a low arterial/systemic pH or any other blood chemistry that could affect vasoactivity.  You might also want to ask for a Chemistry Panel, Complete Blood Count (CBC), and 25(OH)D lab tests.

Take care,

V/R, Batch