Have You Ever Experienced The Pain Of A Cluster Headache?
Friday, October 3rd, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed
Cluster headaches must be one of the most painful conditions known to man and their one and only saving grace is that they are thankfully reasonably rare. For example, while approximately one person in ten of the population suffers from migraine headaches, only in the region of one person in three hundred will experience cluster headaches.
Cluster headaches usually appear as what a lot of sufferers describe as a hot stabbing pain behind just one eye or in the region of the temple. Their chief characteristic however is that they run to a timetable and appear at the same time every day often appearing for several days, weeks or months at a time. They also have a tendency to appear without warning, unlike migraines which are often preceded by several warning signs.
Noone is quite sure what causes these very painful headaches although research favors the theory that they are the result of abnormalities in the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is a small gland that has an important part to play in regulating the body clock and this could explain why these headaches occur at roughly the same time each day.
Another feature of cluster headaches which sets them apart from migraines is that are far more prevalent in in men than in women. In the case of migraines some three times as many women as men are sufferers but, with cluster headaches, studies show that they are seen up to eight times more often in men.
Treatments for ordinary headaches are virtually always ineffective for cluster headaches and this is one type of headache for which you must seek the professional advice of your physician.
One often used treatment is to inhale pure oxygen for a few minutes once the headache begins. This form of treatment will not work for everybody but generally works very well for those people who do find it is helpful. It will not however prevent a cluster headache and is only effective in treating a headache after it has started.
Yet another very effective treatment is the use of a new form of drugs known as triptans which are currently being used to treat migraine headaches. These drugs must however be taken in a very fast acting form if they are to be effective and this generally means using them as a nasal spray. In many cases however cluster headaches can cause inflammation of the nasal passages rendering this type of treatment difficult. When this happens, triptans can occasionally be given by way of aninjection.
At this time there are no terribly effective preventative treatments available for cluster headaches though some sufferers find that calcium channel blockers work fairly well. In addition, in the most severe cases surgery can be considered as a last resort treatment and several neurological procedures are available which include procedures which block certain nerves and which remove a section of the brain.
Technorati Tags: No Tags
Related Tags: No Tags
Possible Related Posts
