Hello fellow sufferers and friends alike, I have been an episodic sufferer for over twelve years and have just entered one of my worst cycles in over five years (which always prompts me to ponder and be perplexed anew). Just wondering if any other sufferer has ever been diagnosed with hemochromatosis (an over-abundance of iron in the blood)? I have and thought it could stand to reason that heavy metals in the blood could conceivably be contributory to CH? The only treatment for it is blood-letting (donating blood) which is a good act in itself but which, if I'm in any way correct, could relieve or reduce the amount or intensity of an attack. Love to hear from you. Thanks. Dan

Cluster is a neurological disorder. No reason to suspect an iron imbalance is involved.

Neurological simply means "having to do with the nervous system" - clusters themselves are still a vascular anomaly with an abnormality of the hypothalamus being the generally accepted theory. The hypothalamus, among many other things, is responsible for neurally transmitted information arising in particular from the heart, the stomach, and the reproductive system; autonomic inputs; blood-borne stimuli. High iron levels in the blood has the potential to alter the information being neurally transmitted. With that in mind there is no reason NOT to suspect anything at all when it comes to clusters and, in this regard, certainly no reason to completely discount my enquiry - but thanks Bob; you obviously have insight that has escaped many an expert. 

I'd really never thought about it until you brought it up, Dan, but I well remember things easing up straight after my three-monthly blood donations. Oddly, my three-weekly plasma donations made no difference either way.


(For the record, I'm VB+)

Brian, when you donate plasma, aren't you keeping your red blood cells which have the iron in them? (I have no idea, I forgot everything from health class.)

You're likely correct, AppleNut, presuming there's anything to the theory at all and it's not just happy coincidence.