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Posted by Jack (167.206.58.39) on February 16, 2000 at 17:13:08:

and although I may be impishly provocative at times I really mean no harm.

Contemplate this for a minute:

There are 3 categories of things one can do to combat clusters and they are:

1) abort
2) prevent
3) cope

My point is real simple. When we confuse one for the other we are setting ourselves up for failure and maybe making a real bad decision.

Exs. - most obvious - if I take an abortive med such as Imitrex and expect it to have an efect on how many clusters I get I am setting myself up for failure.
Also obvious - if I take a preventative and I expect it to work immediately or completely than I may be making a mistake.

And finally and not so obviously - coping behavior - and this is really what I am talking about. If I sit at the edge of my bed and think how lucky I am ( during a cluster ) that I am not the kid around the block who is dying an excruciatingly painful death from cancer that maybe helping me to cope. Someone else may take a walk. Someone else may take a 2 hour hot shower. Someone else may say 123 Hail Mary's. Someone else may drop out and quit a job and start a new life. Doesn't matter - it is all good and very personal. But don't think it is reducing the intensity or frequency of your clusters.

This is the Gospel according to Jack. Go in peace.

Oh and one other thought - the smoking thing. There is lots of data on the effects of smoking on heart disease. There is no real controlled studies on clusters and smoking. The heart disease studies demonstrate that when one stops smoking they are much less likely to have a heart attack or a stroke HOWEVER they are still more likely to have a heart attack or stroke than if they had never smoked. So the effects of smoking linger a LONG time after one has quit. In fact you never get back o zero. I think this is a ood analogy for clusters. Quit smoking and you will still have clusters. But if you continue to NOT smoke you will most likely be helping yourself in terms of frequency and intensity. In spite of Goadsby's hypothalmus, clusters are still a vascular event and smoking does all sorts of real bad things to your veins and arteries.

So if you have clusters and you smoke you are a pooh-pooh head.


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