Posted by Richard Saylor (38.30.253.171) on June 30, 2001 at 13:10:29:
I'm episodic. It started while I was still in high school. The bout usually comes every three years in spring or early summer and lasts about a month. This time it is atypical. I had them for about a week. They stopped for about three weeks, then came back with a vengeance. They started hitting at night and then switched to day, about three or four per day. I tried the water thing, and it helped, so I decided to take it one step further and just do water and no food. After about 24 hours of no food, there were no more attacks, and I thought that the cycle had been broken. Wrong! There is sometimes a persistent shadow, which can be handled with acetominophen. However, if I eat solid food, I get a CH within one hour, similar to what happens if I were to drink a beer. Moderate exercise, like a brisk two mile walk, also provokes a CH, but not as severe, only about a 6. Since I don't want to starve to death, I've had to experiment with a little food intake, and it seems that non-fat yogurt is innocuous, but anything more nutritious, such as an Ensure dietary supplement will usually provoke an attack. I probably shouldn't continue this starvation thing for too much longer, but it has made me curious as to why exercise and food messes things up. I guess like so many things about CH, it's a mystery.