Posted by Jack Boyd (167.206.58.39) on January 08, 2000 at 15:45:13:
Fitness
Exercise has been spoken about as an abortive. People have talked about running around or doing something real strenuous at the beginning of an attack and finding relief. Others have said that exercise in a cycle or at the beginning of an attack was no help and maybe made things worse. My experience was that exercise ( particularly the cool down after ) was not my friend during a cycle.
What we haven’t talked about is general fitness levels and effect on the whole cluster phenomenon. What I am getting at is cardiovascular fitness and any effect on frequency and intensity of cycles. I have absolutely no scientific, empirical data to support what I will now suggest so just go with me on this. I have always suspected that if I got real physically fit ( particularly in a cardiovascular way ) that it would be beneficial to combating clusters. The science could be related to oxygen. When we are fit we use oxygen more efficiently and there is more of it floating around in our blood. We all know that oxygen is a component in clustering. Sleep is the most universal and consistent trigger ( I hate that word ) and there is evidence that we may have reduced oxygen in our systems at certain stages of sleep. Oxygen is a universal abortive.
My own experience goes like this. 30 years of clustering – period between bouts has steadily and consistently grown from 1 year to 2 1/2 years to my current 3 years. It has been remarkable and unmistakable. I also run more now than when I was 20.
I have no idea if this is related to my cardiovascular fitness or if it is a function of my aging.
So what I am suggesting is this.
There is a relationship between cardiovascular fitness and clusters. And the smoking deal that we here so much about may simply be that smokers tend to be less fit and this could have an effect on their clustering.