What is Cluster Headache?

Are you getting 1, 2 or 3 headaches each day? Is the pain excruciating, the worst you've ever felt? Does each headache usually last from 15 minutes to 3 hours? Are the headaches only on one side of your head, in the area shown in the picture to the left? Does your eye tear or nose run on that same side during a headache? Do the headaches occur around the same time each day? Do they sometimes wake you up an hour or two after going to bed? Do the attacks keep coming for several weeks to several months in a row and then go away for months or years? If your answers to these questions are yes, you probably have cluster headaches.

Just what is Cluster Headache?  Cluster Headache (CH) is a "headache" only in that the pain occurs in the head.  Beyond that, there are no real similarities. CH is a rare neurological disorder, affecting approximately 0.1% of the population, which causes excruciatingly severe pain on one side of the head, usually centered around the eye.  The pain is often described as boring or stabbing and is often likened to someone plunging a red hot poker into the eye.  The pain can spread into the temple, jaw and neck area.  The pain escalates very rapidly going from zero to debilitating in 5 to 10 minutes and stops as quickly as it starts.  Attacks last between 15 minutes and 3 hours.  One or more of several physical reactions accompany the pain, always on the same side as the pain.  These include watery eye, runny and/or stopped up nose, red/bloodshot eye, a drooping eyelid, forehead and facial sweating and irritability.  Attacks can occur from once every other day to eight times per day, usually at the same times each day.  An attack will wake a sufferer from a sound sleep.  Unlike with a migraine, a sufferer cannot lay down during an attack.  Instead, he or she will usually pace the floor, sit rocking back and forth, bang their head on the floor or wall, curse, scream and cry from the pain.  Also, unlike migraine, light and sound usually have no effect on the attack, though there are exceptions to every rule.  CH is divided into two sub-groups - Episodic and Chronic.  In Episodic CH the sufferer usually has attacks every day for several weeks to several months followed by several months to a year or more between cycles.  Chronic CH sufferers get no such break.  They suffer day in and day out for years.  There is currently no cure for CH and treatment is hit and miss at best.  What works for one sufferer may or may not work for another.  Treatments that worked last cycle may not work during the next.  Treatments that have not worked in the past, may work during future cycles.

Here is a link to a Cluster Headache quiz on www.clusterheadaches.com.  This quiz, while not a definitive diagnostic tool, will give you a quick idea about whether or not you may suffer from cluster headaches.  Regardless of what type of headache you think you may have, you need to be seen and diagnosed by a doctor.  Preferably one who specializes in headache treatment.  There are many problems and diseases that mimic certain headache types.  Cluster Headache won't kill you, treating yourself for CH and ignoring possible other problems can.

Below, you will find many links to information about diagnosing, treating and living with Cluster Headache.  Unfortunately, due to the rarity of this disease, you may find yourself teaching whatever doctor you have about the disease.  Many sufferers have had to go through several doctors and neurologists to find one that is knowledgeable and that will work with them in their treatment.  Knowledge is power and you are your own best advocate in your medical treatment.   READ, READ, READ all you can and then go read some more.