Hi all. I'm relatively new here but have posted in the Welcome forum already.

I've been trying the water method (a pint or half every 30 minutes). I've had 12 hours pain free today and thought it was working but then I've just come to the end of my longest CH ever - 1 hour. So now I don't know if I should carry on with the water? Has onyone found that the water makes things worse rather than better?

I am doubtful it would make things worse.  However, we clusterheads all react to different treatments differently, and you may have an underlying condition that changes the way you respond.  Let me caution you though that one time does not a pattern make.  Before you start drawing conclusions you need to try it over a period of time to determine whether it is the water or something else that is causing the effect.  CH can be a very difficult thing to draw solid conclusions on.  You need to keep a headache diary that is very specific as to times of hits, severity and duration, what treatments/remedies are being tried and track how long they have been tried.  Very often, especially when we have people who are new to Clusters, multiple things are tried all at a time without the ability to determine what actually is or is not working.  When in pain it is difficult to be objective and give each program a thorough try before making a judgement.  Quite often also it takes a period of time for a modality to take effect.  Water is not going to make that big of a difference in only a day or two.

JMHO, YMMV, but I've been doing this for over 30 years now.  I've seen things come and go, treatments work and then quit, off the wall ideas that appear to work, but without the time to really evaluate it for efficacy.  Often times we will find "Newbies" post with a "Cure" who have only used it once or twice coincidentally with a cycle ending.  The next time they try their miracle cure it does nothing.  On the other hand, some things like the water plan have been tried over a period of time by a number of people and has a better chance of success.

Jerry

I've never heard of drinking lots of water being a trigger for anyone, but theoretically I think it could be possible.  If you're really drinking a pint every 30 minutes to an hour, that would be a lot of water--possibly 2 pints an hour, or 48 pints in a day.  That's a lot.  If you were one of the people having trouble from a low level of Vit D or magnesium, I could see the amount of water you're drinking actually leaching some very good vitamins out of you.  Maybe.

It would seem to me that if you are pushing the water, that would increase the volume of blood in your body, which to me seems like it would dilate your blood vessels. Isn't that why they give people that have high BP diuretics?