Posted by Miguek (209.42.225.25) on February 01, 2000 at 10:14:10:
I thought I share this with you. I feel so relieved! Still scared though since one never knows when that uneasy feeling on the side shows up and wham!!!!
I saw tv program about CH and Migraines a few days back. It gave me a couple of ideas as far as what to take or do. I went to the store, got the @#$@# pills and started taking them.
Last night was the fourth one in which I am not awaken with that feeling of a fountain pen stuck in my left orbital area. No moring unilateral craneal pounding upon waking up either. I know "it" is still there.
since I have kind of ghost sensations in the area (perhaps left over soreness), but somehow they go away in seconds. WOW!!!! is this the end of another episode?!
Here is what I did: Continued the push-ups/sit-ups thing when I got CH. Stopped the Advil and Actifed coctail (I hate pills, thus any excuse will do, although with CH it is a pretty scary tactic), and started taking what the docs in TV talked about:
1 table of Magnesium (400 mg), with Chelated Zinc (15 mg), 1 tablet of vitamin B-50 (actually I was looking for pure rivoflavin, as suggested in tv, but this is the closest that the stuff on the shelf came to - it is a vit. B complex with 50 mg of Rivoflavin (B-2)), and one feverfew pill (a herbal thing - 400 mg).
The program said that Mg and B-2 apparently are found in lower concentrations in CH sufferers. Here is the weird thing - Feverfew apparently acts as a vasodilator! which contradicts everything else I have read so far. All of these are available over the counter, and their costs are seasonable. The B-2 I take once a day, the other two I take with every meal. I am just so puzzled as to why this seemed to work. Perhaps my episodic CH was ending anyway, thus a coincidence?
The information I found in some of the abstracts in this site is fantastic. The most interesting one of the ones I've read so far is the one about biorythms and hypothalamic function. The disruption of the sleep cycle and other biocycles as seemingly affected by hypothatlamic function. I am intrigued about melatonin's lower plasma concentration in CH sufferers during attacks. Then I wonder....hmmmmm.....is it that our biological clock get screwy? subsequently needing a "kick", or "re-boot" to put it back, at least for me. Also, I wonder that although melatonin may not have any major pain management attributes, perhaps may help in "re-booting" hypothalamic function. I know that it apparently plays a role in "correcting" sleep cycles. Also, that people with jet-lag take it to get back quicker into the groove of sleep regularity, and at the "right" times for the zone where they land. Has anyone had any experience with melatonin and CH?
Miguel