Posted by DR (141.214.74.47) on December 09, 1999 at 15:50:29:
In Reply to: BM Pattern outside of cycle? posted by Bill McC on December 09, 1999 at 13:02:39:
Hi Bill McC,
Outside of the cluster I'm regular, yes. I would say that during the cluster the main difference is that the BM's themselves tend to be of a different consistency, lighter and less solid. I haven't tried a laxative.
I think my cluster is breaking up, and as I said in a different post, last week was the first time I had a BM without a headache preceding it in the 4 week cluster. I also noted that this was the first one that was of a "normal" consistency as well.
I hate to talk so graphically about all this... but, I've just always been curious if I'm the only one who's got this sort of thing going on with their clusters.
I'm not sure if there is a need for laxatives since for me the stools are relatively soft. I have wondered if it's possible that there is a breach or ulceration in the intestine that's allowing some sort of toxin or bacteria or something into the bloodstream? Probably not a good theory... I've just always wondered what the link was.
I also should mention that in one of the headache books I've seen that talked about cluster headaches, they mentioned a guy who's chronic cluster headaches were resolved when they took a close look at his diet and discovered that each day he ate a big bowl of popcorn. Once they had cleaned out his GI system and got him off the daily popcorn, his clusters disappeared. I'm sure it's not that simple for most chronic cluster sufferers, but I thought it was an interesting case.
DR