Posted by Gary G on November 11, 1998 at 01:00:53:
In Reply to: Alcohol posted by Stephen Gray on November 10, 1998 at 03:35:37:
About the only thing we all seem to have in common is that alcohol is damn near deadly when we are in a cluster period -
several Drs told me that they felt alcohol didn't "cause" cluster headaches, but if you had CH, drinking would make it much worse
they were right in my case !
I quit drinking altogether 15 years ago - still have clusters, but can honestly say the overall average situation has been getting better (longer "vacations", shorter clusters, milder average attacks ) mind you - I'm talking longterm trends - I still occasionally get some of those nuclear level attacks, but VERY rarely - right now I'm a month into cluster, and it seems to be getting worse, but still nothing like the "bad old days"
had CH for over 10 years before I quit drinking and it had been steadily getting worse - went chronic for the last 16 months or so
summary - when I was drinking, CH was getting progressively worse; since I quit, has been getting progressively better;
would be glad to discuss further via email with anyone interested, but don't want to take the message board off on a sidetrack
good luck everyone, hang in there !