Posted by Jack (24.189.157.209) on December 01, 2001 at 09:06:24:
In Reply to: Somthing interesting the neuro said... posted by Jim R on December 01, 2001 at 07:41:19:
That I am outgrowing them for the reasons you and your nuero cited rather than any hardening of the arteries.
From my first cluster around 31 years ago I have had 2 major interests:
1) were these things damaging me in any way and were they a sign of some other seious illness?
and
2) would I outgrow them?
This is the great news about clusters:
1) they dont damage you physically - believe it or not they really are benign and clusterheads are usually in otherwise good health
2) there is a strong tendency to outgrow them although they usually last a long time.
I will be 52 on my next birthday and I have been clustering since I was 21.
I used to cluster once a year for 5 to 6 weeks.
I now cluster once every 3 years for 5 to 6 weeks.
Being a successful clusterhead requires a will of iron, loads of fortitude, patience and most of all:
oxygen, verapamil, prednisone, lithium, imitrex, etc., etc.
PS - from 21 through my late thirties all of my cluster attacks were unmedicated. Since then verapamil has worked real well for me. I have been very fortunate. I don't really miss the unmedicated days but in a perverse way I always felt so accomplished when I got through my cycle in one piece :-).
PPS - Getting back to your original question I do think that the switch shuts off and the switch is hormonal/chemical and key components are testosterone and serotonin.
PPPS - I just thought of a little study we can do. If testosterone is a key player and we do know that it wanes with age why not prove this by experimenting on Jonny - who we know has lots of testosterone and lots of cluster attacks - I think Jonny would do anything for another clusterhead so why don't we ask him to remove those testosterone producing things he caries around and see if there is an effect on his clusters? Cause and effect is a bitch. What do you think?