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        Supporter's Corner >> Supporter's Corner >> Living in Altitude in connection w/ CH
        
(Message started by: whitelj24 on Mar 24^th, 2006, 12:01pm)

Title: Living in Altitude in connection w/ CH
Post by whitelj24 on Mar 24^th, 2006, 12:01pm

Obviously there are CH sufferers who do not live in altitude. Does anyone think though that there is a connection to living in altitude (with less oxygen). I live in Denver and wonder if moving to lower altitude could help my husband?

Title: Re: Living in Altitude in connection w/ CH
Post by Margi on Mar 24^th, 2006, 12:22pm

I would think that getting your husband a prescription for oxygen would be a whole lot cheaper than moving and relocating to sea level. Oxygen is a wonderful cluster abortive - read the oxygen button to the left.

For what it's worth, my husband has lived at sea level on the East Coast of Canada, also in Ontario (higher than sea level) and now in Alberta - we're in the Rockies here too. Absolutely no difference in cluster activity in any one of the three places. Sorry, I know as a supporter, we try to think of everything that could be causing our sufferers pain. Popular theory is that they are born with different tissue in their hypothalmus, than in non-cluster people. It's not environmental, therefore.

Title: Re: Living in Altitude in connection w/ CH
Post by whitelj24 on Mar 24^th, 2006, 12:32pm

Well that is what I do and don't want to hear. I'd love to think that moving to sea level (he grew up in Flordia and has only ever had his clusters in altitude) would cure him. On the other hand, we love where we live. We were in Florida last week (in the middle of his cycle) and he didn't experience one headache...and he was drinking a lot of beer on the trip. He hasn't had but two beers in Denver since his cycle began in Jan, and they both sent him into terrible headaches.

weird and unexplainable...but we already know that about these, don't we?

Does your husband have a genetic link at all? My husband's great-uncle suffers as well.

And the oxygen prescription is suppose to come to our house today. PLEASE, I hope it does. the prednisone, verapamil, ambien, etc etc etc is just not cutting it.

Title: Re: Living in Altitude in connection w/ CH
Post by Margi on Mar 24^th, 2006, 5:25pm

Yes, we think there is a genetic connection in my husband's family - we believe his dad had cluster. However, he was never diagnosed and died at a young age (51) of lung cancer that may have metastisized to his brain, so we're only going on what Mike remembers of his dad (sitting in his bedroom, head in hands, rocking and crying, then would be fine in an hour).

Mike's had a similar thing happen, with a mid-cycle remission, when he had to do a quick trip away for a week to Ontario. He was able to have beer when he was there and not get hit, but couldn't when he got back home again - it could have been the drastic altitude fluctuations of the plane rides that threw his cycle off, maybe - we don't know.

Good luck with the oxygen - let us know how it works!

Title: Re: Living in Altitude in connection w/ CH
Post by marlinsfan on Apr 5^th, 2006, 2:08pm

I lived in Denver in the early 90s, and in Florida at sea level since 1998, with no change in my cluster episodes. That's just me, though.