Hey Vinnie,

Thanks for the headzup you're starting the anti-inflammatory regimen with 10,000 IU/day or more vitamin D3.  See the following link for the complete list of supplements, suggested dosing, dosing strategies, drug interactions and contraindications.

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This thread also contains instructions for taking the online survey as well as some of the results reported by CH'ers taking this regimen.

I've been collating user response data on the anti-inflammatory regimen from multiple sources for over two years.  Most of this data comes from a rough tally of posts taken from the following link indicate the raw efficacy of this regimen is around 80%.

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240 out of 300 CH'ers who started this regimen have reported a significant reduction in the frequency, severity and duration of their CH attacks.  Most of them have experienced a pain free response.

The online survey results to date are consistent with this rough tally. Unfortunately only 61 of the 113 CH'ers who started this survey have answered the essential questions on efficacy.

The basic demographics obtained from this online survey are consistent with the largest survey of sufferers diagnosed with cluster headache conducted by Dr. Todd Rozen and Royce Fishman where 1134 CH'ers participated, so I'm confident these results are valid.   Two of these demographics are shown below:

Anti-Inflammatory Survey  Rozen-Fishman Survey

Men : Women 
           Count  Percent           Count   Percent
Men         86     76%                816    72%
Women    27     24%                318    28%

Episodic : Chronic
           Count  Percent           Count  Percent
Episodic   72      72%               873   67%
Chronic    28      28%               261   23%

Episodic CH'ers using the anti-inflammatory regimen have a slight edge in efficacy but this can easily be attributed to possible confusion between a response to this regimen and end of cycle.

If you take this efficacy data at face value, in concert with data provided by CH'ers on the results of their 25(OH)D lab tests as illustrated by the color bands overlaid on the chart below developed by Dr. Robert Heaney, MD, it is easy to see the relationship between a vitamin D3 insufficiency/deficiency (a 25(OH)D serum concentration < 30 ng/mL) and the incidence of cluster headache is clearly causal and not a coincidence.

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Moreover, this causal relationship is further supported by a cessation of cluster headache symptoms when 25(OH)D serum concentrations are elevated by a vitamin D3 dose of at least 10,000 IU/day into a range of 60 to 110 ng/mL.

Additional reports from chronic CH'ers who stopped taking this regimen and suffered a reoccurrence of cluster headache symptoms after a week to 10 days further supports the validity of this causal relationship.

At this point we're 39 completed surveys away from the magic number 100.  With 100 completed surveys, the data from this survey will have a relative power of 90.  100 completed surveys will also carry sufficient statistical significance to back up the conclusion that the incidence of cluster headache is directly related to a vitamin D3 deficiency or that the cluster headache triggering mechanism is somehow enhanced and enabled by a vitamin D3 deficiency. 

In either case, I think it's safe to say the anti-inflammatory regimen with 10,000 IU/day or more vitamin D3 acts as an effective cluster headache preventative.

When you stop and think about it, this is really no different than the well known medical fact that rickets and osteomalacia are caused by a vitamin D3 deficiency.

So there you have it...  The news about treating our disorder with the anti-inflammatory regimen doesn't get much better than that...

Take care and please keep us posted,

V/R, Batch