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        New Message Board Archives >> Medications, Treatments, Therapies 2003 >> Cayenne & Melatonin
        
(Message started by: emilysmommy on May 1^st, 2003, 7:03pm)

Title: Cayenne & Melatonin
Post by emilysmommy on May 1^st, 2003, 7:03pm

I was wondering if anyone here has had any luck with Melatonin or Cayenne Capsules and how high of dosage should be taken? I'm not really sure if I'm in a cycle or not.....I started feeling pressure and minimal pain 2 weeks ago so I started the steroids & verapamil, but the pressure and pain is still there, but not any full blown clusters (thank God). Anyways, just wanted to try the melatonin and cayenne to see if it helps. Thanks for any input!

Michelle

Title: Re: Cayenne & Melatonin
Post by Mark C on May 1^st, 2003, 7:55pm

Hi Michelle...
Much has been discussed about Melatonin, now Caynne, I don't know...yet. Look at this OUCH (http://www.clusterheadaches.org/library/medications/melatonin.htm#two) article on Melatonin. I have used Melatonin for insomnia, and it worked pretty good, around 3mg I believe 20 minutes before bed. Helped prevent REM, which is bad for us in cycle.

More on Caynne....here. (http://www.healthandage.com/html/res/com/ConsHerbs/Cayennech.html)

PFDAN's
Mark

Title: Re: Cayenne & Melatonin
Post by emilysmommy on May 2^nd, 2003, 10:23am

Thank you, Mark. I took 2 cayenne capsules last night and whew.....within a half hour my stomach was on fire. I looked at the bottle and realized I had taken about 3,000 mg :o !!! I also took 6 mg Melatonin and it didn't help. In fact I woke up at 1:30 with a HA and then again at 7:00.....not the typical CH though. So I guess I'll keep taking it and see what happens. Hopefully I'll have some positive results!!

Michelle

Title: Re: Cayenne & Melatonin
Post by Bob P on May 2^nd, 2003, 1:27pm

Here is a link to Doc Wright's melatonin presentation at the vancouver convention last year. If I'm not mistaken, Cat is working on having the doctors doing the nasal spray capsaisin trial at this years convention.

Title: Re: Cayenne & Melatonin
Post by Roghfish on May 4^th, 2003, 7:21pm

I just started on Melatonin Tuesday April 30
over the last 15 pluse years I have been going to my Family Dr with these headache when a bout starts up never got help This year it started in Late Jan. on the right side then moved to the left in March. That was it I found Dr of Neurology that only worked with headaches. She gave me a article written by Todd D, Rozen MD explaining the use of Melatonin.
I'm using 10 mg Daily 20 min. before bed
along with Prednisone 80mg for a week Verapamil 240 mg.
and have imitrex inj.
I have only had 2 headaches since the start of the med.
and the imitrex killed that one in about 15 min. :) :)
I will never understand why I didn't look for a Dr. that understands these a long time ago :( :(

Title: Re: Cayenne & Melatonin
Post by emilysmommy on May 5^th, 2003, 7:52am

Roghfish,

It is wonderful that you've had success with the melatonin! I haven't had a full blown yet this cycle so I think the meds, with lots and lots of prayer, are working!

A lot of doctors have no clue what a CH is. I went to my GP last fall because I was almost positive I was having CH and she told me a CH is ANY TYPE OF HA clustered together...WTF?? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? At least my neuro was a bit more educated! A good doctor can mean everything, but they are hard to come by :(

Michelle

Title: Re: Cayenne & Melatonin
Post by cleon on May 5^th, 2003, 9:13am

;)I am having some success with Melatonin - (I think)
I take 10mg every night immediately I feel anything like the start of a cycle.
(I also use Mag and Cal Tissue salts everyday in or out of cycle. Whether its the recipe or one thing or the other, something is helping.)
Since using Mel, I can have what I call a 'painless' cycle - goes for about 4 weeks and only 2/10 pain levels.
I have all the symptoms happening, fast heart rate, temp goes up and feel like shit but limited pain.
I can even wake at night and feel as though some one has pumped my head up with air and its going to burst, but only limited pain.
Prior to using Melatonin and the other things, I screamed day and night - up to 6 attacks in 24 hours
- thats the difference.

During other cycles, the pain did come through during the day, but with the MEL, I was able to get through the night. I still felt like shit, but not half as bad as prior to taking the Mel.

Title: Re: Cayenne & Melatonin
Post by johnmc on May 11^th, 2003, 7:21pm

I'm a newbie to this wonderful site but am very familiar with CH. I'm 43 and have had bouts since my early teens.

This may not mean much but I heard rumors that Melatonin may help me through my next cycle so I started taking 3mg each night before bed. With this dosage though I did find it difficult to get myself moving in the morning so I reduced the dosage to 1mg.

Well, now it's been close to two years since I have had a severe attack. I have had episodes of waking at night and some other symptoms of CH but no appreciable pain.

I can't guarantee that the Melatonin is making me feel better, maybe I'm just lucky but I'm going to keep taking it.

By the way, FYI, the ONLY other meds that have helped me in the past were Prednesone and of course Imitrex.

Take care and good luck!!

Title: Re: Cayenne & Melatonin
Post by els on May 11^th, 2003, 9:35pm

I've been taking 2mg of Melatonin at night. Hard to tell if it helps cause I started Verapamil at the same time. It does give me vivid dreams but I've always had bizarre ones. If I take more than 2mg I am groggy half the next day. I saw 10mg recommended somewhere. I wouldn't be able to function if I took that much. els

Title: Re: Cayenne & Melatonin
Post by paragate on May 22^nd, 2003, 5:21pm

My doctor recommends 9-12 mgs of melatonin, but also says its more of a prophylactic thing, though it could help slow and cut short a cycle in theory. I've used it the last two cycles and it did seem to have some marginal positive effect, though not a cure-all. I've been taking it nightly ever since my last cycle, and though I was disappointed to see a new cycle rear up, the good news is that it hasn't come on as fast, hard and heavy as in the past. Which may or may not be attributable to the melatonin.

There is a national clinical study underway on intranasal capsaisin. Well, actually a modified version of capsaicin, to reduce the burning and irritation. My doctor is the lead investigator on the study. I had to turn him down today when he asked me to participate, because I'm in a situation professionally where I don't have a 2-3 week margin to see if the stuff works (assuming I even got the stuff rather than placebo, because it's a double blind study). I was really bummed to turn him down, but I'm at one of the more critical points of my career and the next 6 weeks are just too key for me to risk wasting 3 of them with no relief, which would mean at that point first starting out on something else.

I'll be watching the study, though, and can't wait to see the results. It really sounds promising for at least some percentage of our population.

Title: Re: Cayenne & Melatonin
Post by vig on May 27^th, 2003, 4:34pm

Here is one of my Capsaicin anecdotes:

I cooked steak with Poblano peppers cut up into pieces using my left hand and inadvertently forgot to wash my hands.

The Cluster Headache came on two hours later and was fierce. The tearing in my left eye was getting profuse. I was pressing it to ease the pain when I realized my horrible mistake! I thought I had really exacerbated my excruciating experience by getting pepper in my eye. However, very quickly I realized that instead of burning my eye, I began to feel a warm, fuzzy, buzz circling my eyeball and moving back into my skull toward the pain. It felt quite good. The pain never got worse, and 10 minutes later the pain was completely gone. The attack lasted 20 minutes. I have other capsaicin stories.

Title: Re: Cayenne & Melatonin
Post by floridian on May 27^th, 2003, 8:51pm

I have had some sucess with melatonin, but better results with 5htp. 5htp is one step away from serotonin, and serotonin is a step or two from melatonin... I think that 5htp is more 'balancing' for my nervous system, your mileage may vary. Usually, 5htp will abort an attack for me, and does not wipe me out like the triptans do.

Prolonged use of 5htp might cause heart problems - I haven't seen evidence that it does, but there is a plausible hypothesis (along the lines of fen-phen). Cayenne/capsicum can damage the kidneys if taken internally for long periods or in very high doses. I use 5htp when necessary, but consider it valuable in my battles against the beast.

Title: Re: Cayenne & Melatonin
Post by BILLY on Jun 5^th, 2003, 6:04pm

I have several of the original Italian CH capsaicin studies if people are interested. They say capsaicin can work as well as other treatments for CH with only local irritation effects but only if repeatedly used intranasally ipsilateral to the pain. They also used a compounded capsaicin solution administered with a micropipette (q-tip I think) although the 1993 US Marks double blind placebo controlled study used common Zostrix 0.025% cream + q-tip with beneficial but perhaps less therapeutic effects. There are more potent creams on the market now as well.

I have also read that rubbing the cream into the temple area can help if you get pain there. American docs don't seem to have much experience with intranasal use so I haven't tried it there yet but it does help my temple when I need it. Docs in this country may only try capsaicin if everything else fails for legal concerns since there are many other easily administered treatments. I wonder if this new capsaicin analogue is really more effective (as the Italian studies using plain capsaicin seem to indicate more efficacy but weren't as controlled) but I know in this country no company is going to spend money on studying something if they can't patent it and protect their investment so they tend to modify it slightly then patent it. Wow that sounded pretty cynical, sorry;)

I can't say for sure if supplemental melatonin helps me (I think it had a few times but not regularly) but trying to stay on a steady sleep-wake schedule while sleeping in total darkness (at least initially) plus getting some daylight helps me. My worst attacks have been associated with times of working and sleeping at all hours.

Title: Re: Cayenne & Melatonin
Post by JDH on Jun 5^th, 2003, 9:34pm

on 05/02/03 at 13:27:46, Bob P wrote:

Cat is working on having the doctors doing the nasal spray capsaisin trial at this years convention.

Went through this trial and wish I could make it to the convention to ask them, wtf was that?
Major nasal burn with that stuff and the beast still raged on.
On the upside, they did give me a lot of Imitrex samples during the trial ;D

Jim

Title: Re: Cayenne & Melatonin
Post by Pinkfloyd on Jun 6^th, 2003, 1:42am

on 05/04/03 at 19:21:15, Roghfish wrote:

I just started on Melatonin Tuesday April 30
She gave me a article written by Todd D, Rozen MD explaining the use of Melatonin.
I'm using 10 mg Daily 20 min. before bed
along with Prednisone 80mg

Sorry for the delayed response....but the quick improvement on the clusters was probably due to the 80mg of prednisone. If they've returned, you probably know that already.
Melatonin often takes a while to show positive results and the best results are shown to be with a nightly dose of 9-12mg. (I know..some people have a difficult time functioning at those levels)
If you [anyone] did have difficulties and went to a low dose and you've been there a while, you MAY want to try to slowly increase the dose to see if you can increase it without causing problems. It may help.

Also, melatonin does *not* stop or eliminate REM sleep.
If it did, and you were on it for an extended period of time, you'd probably begin to hallucinate from the lack of REM sleep. One reason it's teken at bedtime is to help avoid walking around like a zombie during the day, just as many antidepressants etc. are prescribed for nighttime injestion.

Hope you're doing well.
P.Floyd