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cluster2 CH.com Newbie Offline I Love CH.com! Posts: 5	heat or ice Jan 22^nd, 2012 at 7:16pm has anyone tried a warm towel/ heating pad. Has anyone tried a cold towel or ice pack to the head. Do you think this would work and which one better. I see my neruo in 2days. recommend any meds i should try?????
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Guiseppi

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Re: heat or ice
Reply #1 - Jan 22^nd, 2012 at 7:41pm

Cold works best for me. I used to pack my neck and attack side of my head in ice. It helped a little.

When you get to your neuro, insist on oxygen.

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Read this link. Tell your neuro it's critical you have a home oxygen set up, with a NON RE BREATHER MASK, and a regulator with a minimum flow rate of 15 LPM. If he refuses, he knows nothing about CH. That means you can stay with him, and hurt for years, or find someone who knows about CH.

This is not a condition condusive to sitting in front of a doc and saying fix me. Most docs just don't know enough about CH to help you. It's critical you become your own best advocate.

If he knows about CH his recomendation should sound something like this:

A 10-14 day prednisone taper, starting at 60-100 MG and tapering down to zero. This should give you a break from beasty while you start your prevent.

A prevent med. Verapamil, lithium and topomax are the most common. Most take up to 2 weeks to become effective, thus the prednisone to give this time to happen.

OXYGEN OXYGEN OXYGEN!!!

The safest, most effective abortive, with the least amount of side effects. I abort my attacks in 6-8 minutes. If he won't go with oxygen, DUMP HIM QUICKLY Angry

Hoping you found one who has a clue about CH. Let us know how it goes.

Joe

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Mike NZ

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Oxygen rocks! D3 too!

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Re: heat or ice
Reply #2 - Jan 22^nd, 2012 at 7:50pm

Quite a few people have tried cold or heat to help alleviate a CH with examples including hot / cold showers, frozen peas, ice, air con outlets, hot towels, wheat bags and more. For others, this approach doesn't help. So it's a matter of experimenting to see if any of them work for you.

As for medications, you're first looking for a definitive diagnosis of CH (or reconfirmation) before determining which medications to use.

First off you need a preventive, typically starting with prednisione on a taper dose, starting at abour 60-80mg and then tapering off to nothing over about 7-10 days. This will give time for a long term preventive to build up.

Verapamil is the most commonly used, probably 360-480mg a day, but the effective dose may be more or less. Other ones include lithium and topomax. As to which one is best for you, that is up to the neuro as they look at your medical history, other medications, etc.

For aborting CHs, make sure you insist on having medical oxygen, delivered at at least 15lpm (higher is better) via a non-rebreather mask. Using this combo I can kill off my CHs in about 5 minutes.

Imitrex injections or nasal spray is also very commonly used for when it isn't practical to have oxygen, however this is a lot more expensive than oxygen and it has side effects too.

There are lots of other options, read up here on the forums and you'll see them, but the above are the ones most likely that you'll be given.

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Bob Johnson CH.com Alumnus Offline "Only the educated are free." -Epictetus Posts: 5965 Kennett Square, PA (USA) Gender:	Re: heat or ice Reply #3 - Jan 23^rd, 2012 at 6:38am Our repeated discussion clearly lead to--both work. All you can do is try. Technique range from ice pack or packages of frozen veggies or putting you head into the freezer. Head by hot packs or using a hair dryer to hit the, for example, temple. See PDF file for the latest evaluation of meds for Cluster.
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wimsey1 CH.com Alumnus Offline I Love CH.com! Posts: 2457 MA Gender:	Re: heat or ice Reply #4 - Jan 23^rd, 2012 at 8:48am Actually, neither work for me. I can't stand anything touching my head or face during a hit, and the mere presence of heat or cold does nothing to alleviate the pain or duration. Maybe I'm just one of those odd ducks. I wish it were so simple for me, though. Blessings. lance
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Guiseppi CH.com Moderator CH.com Alumnus Offline San Diego to Florida 05-16-2011 Posts: 12063 SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA USA Gender:	Re: heat or ice Reply #5 - Jan 23^rd, 2012 at 8:53am I wish it were so simple for me, though. Blessings. lance I suspect very little about you is simple Lance! Joe
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IndianaJohn CH.com Hall of Famer Offline Into the jaws of the Beast Posts: 686 Decatur,Indiana,USA Gender:	Re: heat or ice Reply #6 - Jan 23^rd, 2012 at 9:58am cold packs work best for me..
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mikstudie CH.com Old Timer Offline Beastmaster Posts: 284 Westland Mi. Gender:	Re: heat or ice Reply #7 - Jan 23^rd, 2012 at 1:10pm Hot,cold no effect on me. Oxygen and imitrex spray. Ask you doc if he knows what CH (not cluster headaches) but just CH is. If he says no find the nearest door.
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Purple (head404)

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Re: heat or ice
Reply #8 - Jan 23^rd, 2012 at 1:51pm

Ice!!!

I couldn't live without ice anymore. I discovered that trick 12 years ago. I started with ice packs, but they're not cold enough, it's got to be ice cubes with less possible plastic over it.
I don't use oxygen (probably I should but that's another story), but from what I read, I have been using ice pretty much the same way: at the first sign of a CH developing, I stick the ice pack on my neck and temple, and hold it there firmly. Most times, I can abort the hit within 10-20 minutes and go back to sleep (another hour).
I literally freeze my neck down, then the pain shifts to my temple, then I put the ice on my temple (I can't hold the ice on my temple as long though), then back to my neck, until... oh, miracle, it all stops at once. But it comes back later though.
It doesn't always work though, and sometimes I can feel it getting to kip 8, kip 9, and the usual total badtrip kip 10.
Some people told me that it was very bad for my body to freeze my neck like this. Maybe, but I don't care. Only a clusterhead can understand that: Anything!! get me anything but make it stop!!
I tried heat a very long time ago with no success, never tried again.
Oh yes, last detail: my eye is not affected by the pain anymore, just temple and neck (I wonder why). I remember in my first 'Ice years', I of course couldn't ice down my eye as much, so Ice was less effective, for the pain would concentrate there

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JHK07

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Re: heat or ice
Reply #9 - Jan 25^th, 2012 at 10:38am

Ice Packs. the medical kind. I am like HEAD404, I try to freeze, or make very numb, my neck/shoulder and above my ear areas. I usually wrap in a thin towel. I like the medical packs because as they thaw they can conform more to the curves of your body, because of the gel inside.
I can't stand heat, unless it is a shower, more or less just to try to relax.

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Bonnie lee CH.com Veteran Offline I Love CH.com! Posts: 131	Re: heat or ice Reply #10 - Feb 10^th, 2012 at 2:54pm Cold packs for me!!!!!!!
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AussieBrian CH.com Hall of Famer Offline CH - It's all in your head! Posts: 3851 Cairns, Qld, Australia Gender:	Re: heat or ice Reply #11 - Feb 10^th, 2012 at 5:50pm I use both simultaneously, ie frozen peas in a steaming hot shower. Figure if I can't beat the bastage I'll confuse it enough to leave. Once had the water so hot I scalded my scalp and half my hair fell out. Didn't even know until morning.
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Mr Cluster CH.com Newbie Offline I Love CH.com! Posts: 3	Re: heat or ice Reply #12 - Feb 21^st, 2012 at 12:05pm Ice Ice Baby. Those really cold gel things in the freezer always. Start at the temple and over the eye as long as I can stand it and slowly move back towards the neck area. Concentrate on the cold. When I feel the "brain freeze pain" over the attack is when I move backwards.
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BobG

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Re: heat or ice
Reply #13 - Feb 22^nd, 2012 at 8:43am

I've always use ice. Heat only makes the pain worse.
I Seal-A-Meal'd about a dozen ice cubes in a pouch then let it thaw. Then laid it flat in the freezer to make a 5"x5" ice sheet about 1/4" thick. Works for me.

Strange thing about cold.........
Very cold weather can bring on an attack for me but when the wake-up call comes in the middle of the night I always need to get the ice pack and go outside to the coldest place I can find.

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Stay stressed. Never relax. Never sleep. Ever.

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