Posted by Bill McC (198.64.206.92) on November 16, 1999 at 01:37:19:
In Reply to: How Often posted by Ken Z. on November 15, 1999 at 11:23:02:
I have a theory that some of my attacks are related to Adrenaline withdrawl brought on by decompressing from long-term stress-induced adrenaline production. This theory is based upon my personal experience only. When in a cluster I can often avoid an attack by focusing REALLY hard on a mental problem, such as I often find in my line of work. HOWEVER, it is impossible to carry on this pace for any great length of time so, I can expect an attack EXACTLY 2 hours after either (1) I stop working, or (2) I go to sleep. NOTE: (1) and (2) are often the same when I am working at my home office.
I have found that it takes a REALLY long time to decompress from long-term stress build-up, say several weeks to a month. During this destressing period the application of stress causes some relief in the CH pattern, and a viscious cycle is set up. I have found that in order to wind-down the cycle I have to suffer through several "avoidable" CH attacks by NOT stressing UP. I have found that other abortives, such as Imitrex NS, are useful and do not seem to cause rebound HA's IF I am careful not to re-stress also.
I have found that weekend CH attacks are part of the pattern, especially on the latter part of a CH-bout cycle. Part of this may be due to long-term withdrawl of Adrenaline and stress.