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        Cluster Headache Help and Support >> Medications, Treatments, Therapies >> still breathing
        
(Message started by: runningman on Feb 26th, 2008, 8:12am)
Title: still breathing
Post by runningman on Feb 26th, 2008, 8:12am
hi all, i have posted recently about breathing and inducing it via exercise. Just wanted to update. This particular cycle I am in has the markings of a nasty one, I am being whammed 9 or 10 times a day/night. But none of the attacks have gone full blown, I have had success in aborting them by doing anything to get my breathing heavy and hard. Running and climbing stairs are the most effective and quickest. The key for me has been to keep going even when it seems like it is not going to stop the pain, BUT if I get a sharp shot to the brain, I slow down and walk a bit and let the heart catch up, so it seems like oxygen flow is relevant. Also since I need to breathe really hard to abort within minutes. It helps a lot if I start right away as soon as I feel it coming on. The longer I wait, the more exercise it takes. But if it is right at the first signs, then a brisk climb up 8 flights of stairs will take the pain away, albeit for just an hour sometimes, and for a day sometimes.

PS: When I saw Judi signing her name as Gonnabeatem, it made me get emotional and just about cry, you are the only ones who understand this, everyone in my life thinks I am absolutely nuts but you guys know the drill !  I have tried many many times to make deals like "I will do anything, give anything, whatever it takes, just never let the pain come back". So far no bargain. I am almost out of this cycle, I hope.

PPS Water has helped too, gotta force it down but it definitely helps.

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU, I HAVE LEARNED MUCH AND BENEFITED GREATLY FROM ALL THE TIPS HERE.... :)
Title: Re: still breathing
Post by darknight on Feb 26th, 2008, 9:20am
Hi Runningman!!!

Have you tried or have you access to OXYGEN??

it would be better than running up and down the stairs and even when you do that the air you breathe is not pure oxygen!!
Title: Re: still breathing
Post by Guiseppi on Feb 26th, 2008, 11:59am
I used to go for a run when an attack started. It would keep it down to a manageable level. Thank goodness I have oxygen now. I can be pain free in less then 10 minutes, often as quick as 6-8 minutes. On or off cycle I keep a stock of e-tanks, 4-8, in my car, garage and bedroom. they are my little green security blankets.

Hang in there, hope the beast is done with you this time around.

Guiseppi
Title: Re: still breathing
Post by kevmd on Feb 27th, 2008, 11:59am
you will beat this like you have in the past.  Time will pass and it will end.  Get yourself some O2 asap
Title: Re: still breathing
Post by Batch on Feb 27th, 2008, 8:47pm
Runningman,

Breathing is a great alternative to assuming room temperature... I too subscribed to your methodology of running (really jogging) many years ago as a homeopathic abortive for my episodic cluster headaches.  The results of all the jogging exercise although beneficial for my overall health, was marginal at best in reducing the duration of my cluster headache attacks.  Aside from being called to the curb by the local Police a few times between midnight and 5 am, the only thing the jogging really did was keep me from dancing around the living room and banging my head off the wall.

Being a bit older now (it happens), and hopefully a bit wiser (without being self-indulgent), I've found oxygen therapy as the others have pointed out, is clearly far more effective in aborting the pain of your cluster headache attacks in much less time without needing to go running around and scaring the neighbors at all hours of the night.

If you've not already done so, get a prescription for medical oxygen at 15 liters/minute with a good non-rebreather oxygen mask, then find a constant flow regulator good for a flow rate of 25 liters/minute or higher.

All the running around you did increased your respiration rate, and although helpful in pumping more atmospheric oxygen into your lungs, your body was burning that oxygen just as fast due to all the running around, so the net effect of increasing the oxygen content of your arterial blood flow above normal (hyperoxia), was minimal.  

Hyperoxia from breathing 100% oxygen is a vasoconstrictor as is respiratory alkalosis or hypocapnia (two fancy words for the condition you get from hyperventialting).  These two factors result in vasoconstriction and that's what aborts cluster headache attacks faster and with fewer invasive side effects than any other abortive medication available to us today.  In short, hyperventilating on 100% oxygen gets us the best of both conditions safely and without any of the troubling side effects associated with other prescribed abortives.  It works for me...  

V/R, Batch
Title: Re: still breathing
Post by vietvet2tours on Feb 27th, 2008, 9:25pm

on 02/27/08 at 20:47:49, Batch wrote:
Runningman,

Breathing is a great alternative to assuming room temperature... I too subscribed to your methodology of running (really jogging) many years ago as a homeopathic abortive for my episodic cluster headaches.  The results of all the jogging exercise although beneficial for my overall health, was marginal at best in reducing the duration of my cluster headache attacks.  Aside from being called to the curb by the local Police a few times between midnight and 5 am, the only thing the jogging really did was keep me from dancing around the living room and banging my head off the wall.

Being a bit older now (it happens), and hopefully a bit wiser (without being self-indulgent), I've found oxygen therapy as the others have pointed out, is clearly far more effective in aborting the pain of your cluster headache attacks in much less time without needing to go running around and scaring the neighbors at all hours of the night.

If you've not already done so, get a prescription for medical oxygen at 15 liters/minute with a good non-rebreather oxygen mask, then find a constant flow regulator good for a flow rate of 25 liters/minute or higher.

All the running around you did increased your respiration rate, and although helpful in pumping more atmospheric oxygen into your lungs, your body was burning that oxygen just as fast due to all the running around, so the net effect of increasing the oxygen content of your arterial blood flow above normal (hyperoxia), was minimal.  

Hyperoxia from breathing 100% oxygen is a vasoconstrictor as is respiratory alkalosis or hypocapnia (two fancy words for the condition you get from hyperventialting).  These two factors result in vasoconstriction and that's what aborts cluster headache attacks faster and with fewer invasive side effects than any other abortive medication available to us today.  In short, hyperventilating on 100% oxygen gets us the best of both conditions safely and without any of the troubling side effects associated with other prescribed abortives.  It works for me...  

V/R, Batch


Well said.

    Potter
Title: Re: still breathing
Post by Guiseppi on Feb 28th, 2008, 10:15am
That Batch dude acts like such a know it all...........but exactly what he said! ;;D

Guiseppi

(Who LOVES his little green E-Tanks!)


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