After suffering form ECH for a number of year, and been given various different medication, with suprise suprise none of them doing anything!!

My Doctor referred me to a Headache clinic, the medication i was then prescribed was as follows.

40mg Prednisolone for 5 days, reducing 10mg every 2 days there after!

Verapamil - 160mg 3 times a day, so 480mg a day. This is to be increased every 2 week by 80mg, but only after an ECG! As after all Verapamil is a L-type calcium channel blocker!

Providing your 2 weekly ECGs are clear, this increased every 2 weeks until you reach the maximum does of 960mg a day. Or hopefully before your clusters stop!

i did have an instance where i developed 3rd degree heart block, so had to stop increasing my dose. But 3rd degree heartblock, actually causes no pain, so i would take that over a headache anytime!

When i did get clusters i used Sumatriptan injections, which i have found very effective (wish i was given them years ago). Headache tends to go within 15 minutes after the injection!!

Hope this will help some of you, and any questions please ask!!

Yes start dose of
Morning 180mg
Afternoon 180mg
Evening 180mg

After 2 weeks, and if ECG clear increase morning dose by 80mg, then further ECG and increase Afternoon dose by 80mg and so on!

Have yet to try oxygen, but have heard good things, hopefully won't need to, but def worth considering if all else fails!

mickp78 wrote on Oct 25^th, 2012 at 7:50pm:

This is not something to try when all else fails... It should be a first choice because it is highly effective (usually even more effective than the imitrex shots you like so much), and has low physical impact on your health.