Posted by Doug (192.31.86.35) on June 17, 1999 at 10:45:37:
Has anyone heard of any research on the effects of centrifugal force in CH attacks? Centrifugal force is the force that wants to throw you off a fast-spinning carousel at a circus, or if you tie a rock to a string and spin it overhead, it's what keeps the rock going in a circle and keeps the string tight. I've searched the message archives here on this site but I haven't hit on anything. I'm not sure what the Diamond Clinic's web address is to see if they've done any research on it. If you know the email or web address for the clinic, please send it to me.
Here's my thought:
As odd as it sounds, imagine having a small merry-go-round in your backyard. When you get a CH, you give it a spin and climb on. Putting your head in the center, the centrifugal force from the spinning merry-go-round would tend to push blood from your head toward your feet, lessening the blood pressure in your skull. Putting your feet in the center would tend to force blood toward your head, increasing the blood pressure in your head. Since I'm not a CH sufferer (my girlfriend is) and since I'm not a doctor, I'm not sure which of the two options is preferred. It's even possible that the treatment might involve lying 'sidways' on the merry-go-round and forcing bloodflow to the left or right sides of the skull, that is, toward or away from the side of the skull where the pain is located. The best configuration might end up being different from person to person--I don't know.
To releave the pain, I can't recall if the area in the skull where the pain is located would favor an increase in blood pressure or a decrease in blood pressure, or if it needs to have a dilation or constriction of the blood vessels in the area.
Since some CH sufferers want to swing their heads, some rock back and forth, some jump lightly up and down to releave the pressure and the pain, I just thought about it and saw the similarity between the slight, temporary force imparted by the swinging, rocking, jumping and the constant force of being on a rotating merry-go-round.
I wanted to post this simply because I had the idea and couldn't imagine not sharing it. Maybe somebody has experimented with it. If so, what are the findings? But more importantly, what if NOBODY has researched it! Maybe we're overlooking a simple solution for releaving the pain.
TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR! If you're thinking about trying something like this TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR! Don't take any chances. Or better yet, leave the research up to the professionals so they can monitor test subjects under proper medical supervision and get back to all of us with their findings before you try it on your own.
If anybody has contacts with Diamond Clinic in Chicago please get back with me. If anybody has connections with clinical laboratories which might be willing to take on this kind of research task, please pass this on to them. The more I write about this, the more curious I get about its untested (as far as I know) possibilities.
100% O2,
Doug