Help guys!  I've completed 10 days of the D3 regimen (the full thing-D3, fish oil, calcium, magnesium, boron, K, etc.), including accelerated D3 dosing of 20k/day plus 50k loading doses 2 of those days.   Things have went from bad to much worse!  (for the record, my 25(OH)D was 42 on day 3 of the regimen).

When I started I was having 2-3 attacks a day, and that went up to 4 - 6 attacks / day a few days in (which I hear is not unexpected for there to be a slight uptick early on), but now I've had 8 attacks/day 2 days ago and 11 these past 24 hours.  I could tolerate the slight update to 4-6 attacks / day but I cannot keep doing these 11 attack days.  Thoughts on if this could be a result of the D3 regimen?  I've added the lemonade, you name it - I'm following the program.  Last night's 9 nocturnal hits was after taking DHE IM, which normally would get me 24 hours of peace.  I cannot do many more of these high-hit nights, I'm at wit's end.  Not sure how I'm going to be able to keep doing my job either, right now, I'm so exhausted.

Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks.

Matt

Totally agree with Judy...
Matt, if you see this post, perhaps list exactly what you are taking for Batch to comment clearly.
For the first 3 weeks of starting the Regimen, I experienced break-thru's on my left side, which I hadn't suffered for many years with.  Strange... then they stopped, so far I have been pf since October.
I'm episodic
All the best Matt.. stay tuned,  pfw's my friend.
Sue

when I started the regime, it was a few weeks into the cycle.  it didn't make any changes at all, in fact I thought it was making it worse.
I wish I started the regime out of cycle, and have all the levels up in time for the next cycle .
I too was hoping it to be the miracle fix,  but until I got my levels up to 200 nmol, which took at least a couple of months, it didn't really have an effect for me.
now, im feeling the impact of being in the green zone with vit d3, as I tip toe thru what was last years mega time period for a cycle    shhhh
so please don't give up on it, some take longer to work,  and it wasn't oxygen or an imigran shot type quick fix, its a slow build up,,  its just we don't start trying it till we are desperate or about to start or when its started.
hope it all works out for you,   stick at it don't give up, you could be like me,  just takes a little longer than others have taken

colin

Fingers and toes crossed for ya! Just having one night PF is huge when you are in the midst of a cycle! Keep us posted please and keep in touch with Batch!

Judy

hey chmatt,  seems as though you may have hit a balance.
    I to had all sorts of funny things happen.  but as mentioned, my cycle last may/june, went on forever, I believe it finally stopped around October,  considering before for a couple of years they were irregular and never went for more than 3 weeks.  I started the regime when the cycle had started, for me, the regime was slow acting.
I was on 270mg of verapamil pryor to the cyle starting for a good 4 months. this lessened the strength of the attacks in may from kip 10, to on average kip 6-7. I still gave in and took a weeks course of prednisone, then resumed verapamil and the regime. I didn't think anything was going to work for me.
since October ( the cycle ending ) ive tinkered with the amounts of all the supplements, I was getting night hits, 3 or 4 a night, and obviously you panic when it wakes you up and have trouble going back to sleep afterwards through fear of it returning. all my night hits only got to a kip 1-2, and were easily aborted, by a red bull, then ice cold water. I lifted my fish oil to two pills ( 3000mg) for 2 or 3 weeks and the night hits stopped, so I returned back to the one now.
the moral of my story, was that the regime didn't instantly work for me, but once out of cycle ( October ) ive had no real cluster hit apart from the occasional night ones explained.   I can also feel them sometimes wanting to break thru, I will heat up just the same as when I was in a full blown cycle attack, but it doesn't go any further !
ive dropped down to 180 mg verapamil at the moment and been relatively pain free for going onto my 4th month, while treading carefully, and January is normally my danger time,  thru actively changing up the amounts of supplements when something doesn't feel right, using the diet that batch put up, the ph drink,  im starting to believe that im seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
its a long road ahead, but there is light, a lot have had some great success on the regime and I hope you stick at it, get out of the current cycle your in and then do as I did, with input from batch and reading others experiences on it here, hopefully you'll find that sweat spot im endeavouring to be in.   wish it would react the same for everyone, but we're all different, just gotta   " find that sweat spot "
sorry about the long winded post, just wanted to relay my past difficulties..........
   
kindest regards
colin 

Good work in figuring out what you need to do to fit in with your medication and how your CHs affect you.

It isn't surprising that there can be an interaction between verapamil which is a calcium channel blocker (antagonist) and taking calcium supplements. Many can just make sure that they take the calcium multiple hours after or before taking the verapamil, but you've found that this doesn't work for you.

For tapering the other medication, waiting several weeks is a good idea, as is tapering off just one at once as it enables you more easily to link what you're changing with what the impact is. It is far too easy to change multiple things at once (I know I've done it) to find that you just don't know what changed what.

Once you're hopefully down to just verapamil and the D3 stuff you may be able to make more changes in the verapamil, but if you need both to control your CH then the important thing is that it is being controlled.

They headaches came back for a while while I was fighting off a cold.  I had my 25(OH)D checked by my PCP and it had dropped from 103 to 77 during that time, even though I was still taking weekly loading doses and 20k/day.  Last night and the previous night I had shadows at exactly 8:50 pm, but they never got worse than a very tolerable KIP 2-ish - I opted to continue watching TV and not run to the O2 and they never got worse than that and were on their way after 50 minutes.

However, more importantly, I slept through the night the last TWO nights!  Very happy about that!!! 

Colin - I'm in the same boat as you - since I'm chronic it's been probably 15 years since my last beer and I am eager to try one again.  I'm being a bit more cautious - I'll wait to try one until I'm totally shadow-free for a few weeks.  Who knows, I may have lost my taste for it too, but it'll be nice to have the option if it works for me.