Posted by testy (212.26.19.158) on August 13, 2000 at 05:05:03:
All.
I have suffered from CH for about a decade now but never knew what it was. I'm American, working in Saudi Arabia, and the medical people here are not very switched on. I've had CAT scans, blood tests and taken enough mixed drugs to fill a small pharmacy but never never knew what I was trying to fix. I have worried that I was going insane or possibly had some kind of vicious and undetected tumor eating me alive. I trotted out my symptoms on the board and within 15 minutes had confirmation of what was wrong with me. Although dancing with the devil every night is bad, it is much better than what I had suspected. Believe it or not, CH is actually a relief. I've put up with not only pain, but the fear of impending death for a decade, now I'm back to a single problem. Thank you all, for your time and patience and willingness to recommend things that might help me. I will work my way through them and see which work for me. As an oh-by-the-way, I have something for aborting the beasties that I haven't seen mentioned here. When I am awakened and in serious pain I take a cold shower and air-dry plus some cafergot. Riyadh, where I live, is a VERY dry place and the evaporation chills you extremely quickly. This seems to help, I suspect it has to do with the body constricting blood vessels to maintain core temperature. This seems to work much better than just taking the ergot preparations alone. It helps me to keep the total dose of ergot lower which is always a relief. Anyway, give it a try, a cold shower is certainly non-toxic and has very few side effects.
The best of luck to you all when dancing with your own devils and thank you again.