Posted by Michel L (24.200.177.127) on April 12, 2000 at 20:04:43:
In Reply to: This site has broken my Heart........ posted by Jim on April 12, 2000 at 15:32:05:
Hello Jim,
As I can see and read, you are not new to clusters. I am not as experienced as you are, or Drummer or many others, but I was in the worst cycle I have ever had when I sat and reflected on my condition. I was in a cluster mode in March- April - Half of June. It started again in July until my neurologist put me on prednisone and it started again in late Sept...Oct to mid December. Since then...pretty good.
Early in November I went to see my family Dr. who had a standing prescription from my Neuro to precribe me prednisone. I hate the effect of Prednisone, it is too general, the side effects are quite bad. So I asked him instead to prescribe me some Diflucan, I told him that I would prefer to try that for a week wanting to test the Candidia theory. He accepted since he dind’nt think that the Diflucan would be more toxic than the Prednisone. It gave no result, except that I could set my watch by the attacks I had. It made them perfectly regular. Besides that, no improvement in my condition. I was getting really pissed off, so I did something else. Since I am a strong believer in the nerve inflammation ‘theory’(doubled with the myelin defect caused by a virus), and also think that my trigeminal nerve is compressed at the Cervical 2 level and that the manipulation of my chiro had been wrongly done, since chiros will give a bilateral treatment to realign the cervical region, I decided to take matters in my ‘own hands’.
I tought that the treatment had to be unilateral since the pain was on one side only, and that the nerve compression had to be relieved on that side only and not recreated by a bilateral manipulation.
During a massive attack I went to the basement, where I often hide during attacks and sat on a bed, bent forward and pulled on my head so hard (pulling toward the left - my pain was on the right side) that I saw a flash of light. The attack stopped within seconds, but I knew this did’nt alleviate the nerve’s inflammation so I took some Voltaren for a few weeks afterwards (VoltarenSR that I would take twice a day (75mg in the morning, 75mg at night)). I am sure I pulled a muscle also because I had severe upper back pain afterwards...but that was nothing compared to a CH attack.
A couple of weeks ago I started to have some mid morning pains, more like heavy shadows. They would pass with a motrin but got too regular for my taste. I went to my Dr. to get a new prescription for some Voltaren, I started at 2 per day and I am now at 1 per 2 days and feeling pretty good in general.
Since then I am almost completely pain free, only a slight sinus and upper eye pain that I can manage with motrin about once or twice a week.
I still apply the following rules : I try not to turn my head to the right, I try never never to flex my neck backwark looking up and I often use my right palm to push my head to the left, flexing my neck in that direction.
The month of May as been a very bad month for the last few years...I’ll see if my condition holds for the month.
Of course, this is only anecdotal and unscientific, maybe my cycle had simply ran its time...but it seems to be working for me and for now.
I have read quite a few posts recently about chiropractors...sometimes they are lucky and free the correct area. At the next visit, they can undo what they did at the previous visit. So now, I tend to stay away and do my own pulling and bending.
Best of luck to you and pain free days.
Michel L
Québec