Posted by gary (209.187.113.20) on January 08, 2000 at 18:16:21:
In Reply to: Fitness ( lengthy ) posted by Jack Boyd on January 08, 2000 at 15:45:13:
jack-
Really good comprehensive statement I think.
Absolutely agree that general physical condition probably affects CH to a great degree.
Have a different view on the sleep part though -
realizing an occasional OLD reference actually said don't sleep too much w/CH
and fully endorsing the damned 90 minute REM sleep onset tendency-
it is possible that:
the too much sleep advice is a poor abstraction from the 90 minute sleep & wake phenomena
and the 90 minute sleep is not so much a trigger (attack causing agent) as a coincidental event, along the lines: neurological change happens about 90 - 120 minutes into sleep that cause REM sleep; same or similar neuro shift also is fuse for an attack-
which is to say, the REM sleep transition is a co-traveller with the CH attack, not a cause
MAINLY because I have noticed the following for quite a while, and more dranamtically than ever in the past 2 clusters:
during the cluster, if I push myself too much and skip sleep, this is followed by a day or two of dramatically increased attack activity
if I take enough benadryl a bedtime, along w/the melatonin I've been trying this time, to get PAST the REM sleep transition,
then I sleep extremely deeply for a good long time without attack - -
and I tend to think that if we sleep a long hard sleep, it's because we NEEDED it
basically, I believe that plenty of sleep is an important part of the general physical fitness you discuss -
the trick is getting past that 90 minute booby trap