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        New Message Board Archives >> 2002 Posts >> New Member Needs Advice
        
(Message started by: laney32 on Sep 4^th, 2002, 1:30pm)

Title: New Member Needs Advice
Post by laney32 on Sep 4^th, 2002, 1:30pm

Hello Everyone!
I am new here and I do not know alot of the CH terminology that you guys use so bear with me.
Anyway, my husband suffers from CH. He started having them about five years ago and of course we did not know what they were. We saw several doctors and they said Sinus Infection. They came back last year and finally diagnosed with CH. He is in his 9th week now with no relief everyday and everynight like clockwork with those shadows in between. He uses oxygen and Zomig and pain pills but still he is in so much pain and going downhill fast. Any advice would be great. Thanks

Title: Re: New Member Needs Advice
Post by Jim R on Sep 4^th, 2002, 1:36pm

Verapamil...it gave me a seven year remission is is the first line defense (although I am having problems myself now). O2 is great but doesn't always work for me when the pain level gets up there. Have him get a referral to a neurologist. Sounds like he already has a lot of support. Pain free days and nights to him (PFDAN's) Jim R

Title: Re: New Member Needs Advice
Post by Linda_Howell on Sep 4^th, 2002, 1:48pm

Laney,

Please forgive me, but everytime I hear someone say they are taking pain medication for clusters, I stand up on my soap-box. It would seem to make sense to take a pain med for pain right? Not in this case. Codeine, Darvocet, Lorcet, etc. are very addictive. They also do not help a cluster headache, & in fact will give a re-bound from hell. Save the pain-killers for tooth-aches, etc.

Verapamil, Imitrex and Amerge(besides 02) are the best we have available right now to fight this. Some have also had a lot of luck with other meds that are listed to the left in the links.

Tell your husband not to give up. There is more information on this site than anywhere else you may look. We welcome you and your husband, even though we wish we didn't have to. Linda Howell

Title: Re: New Member Needs Advice
Post by Drk^Angel on Sep 4^th, 2002, 3:22pm

Welcome to the board! Sorry that the beast is slowly rippin' your husbands skull open, and diggin' around with a white hot icepick. The only thing that I've found to work for me is verapamil 240mg X 3/day and O₂ on the breakthroughs. Welcome to the family! Good luck!

PFDAN...................... Drk^Angel

Title: Re: New Member Needs Advice
Post by oringkid on Sep 4^th, 2002, 4:19pm

Welcome Laney and Husband! You will be amazed at the info and support here!

I have to agree with Linda, the pain pills are normally no good. Addictive and barely take the edge off. There are much better, non-addictive, meds out there for this.

Check out all the buttons on the left.

again, welcome!
Sherry

Title: Re: New Member Needs Advice
Post by jonny on Sep 4^th, 2002, 4:35pm

Try Verapamil, if that dont work mix in some Lithium. Although it works great for alot of chronic's it will work for some episodic's.

..............jonny

Title: Re: New Member Needs Advice
Post by 2late on Sep 4^th, 2002, 4:47pm

has he seen a neuroligist?if not that's the first step. .................2late

Title: Re: New Member Needs Advice
Post by Charlie on Sep 4^th, 2002, 5:12pm

Welcome to our ward. Your husband isn't alone, and neither are you. You'll find lots of mostly sensible ideas here and believe it or not, you'll likely find something to mitigate his pain. It happens all the time.

Keep looking around and we'd like to hear more from you and how you're doing. Stick around.

Charlie

Title: Re: New Member Needs Advice
Post by don on Sep 4^th, 2002, 5:55pm

You might want to consider a prednisone taper in combination with verapimil

Title: Re: New Member Needs Advice
Post by Svenn on Sep 4^th, 2002, 6:05pm

First of all Welcome to Clusterville.

I just wont to add my medications for breaking out of cycle.But remember that i`m not a doc,just another clusterhead from Norway

Verapamil Retard 120mgX5-7/daily during cycle
Oxygene alone at 10ltm for 15 minutes or combined with imitrex-shots does miracles.The shots should start working in 6-9minutes.a few seconds after that you are almost painfree
Prednisolone in high doze for 10 days 80mg
then over a 3 weeks periode step down like 60-40-30-20-10-5mg /daily

Think the other friends has said it all here so the only thing that i can contribute with is this

Your friend in Norway Svenn