[Misc] Cluster Headaches

[Frutos]

BBC News - Agonising headaches make me bang my head off walls

Agonising headaches make me bang my head off walls

Daren Frankish says his cluster headaches are like being hit with a baseball bat and stabbed in the eye.

www.bbc.co.uk

Any other sufferers on here?

I usually get a couple of attacks a year, although I take medication daily (Pizotifen) to hopefully keep them at bay and I have Sumatriptan to help if/when they do hit.

They really are utterly debilitating - there have been a couple of occasions where I've been taken to hospital and needed liquid morphine to get the pain under control, so I can totally empathise with the guy in the article.

 

[Eric the meek]

BBC News - Agonising headaches make me bang my head off walls

Agonising headaches make me bang my head off walls

Daren Frankish says his cluster headaches are like being hit with a baseball bat and stabbed in the eye.

www.bbc.co.uk

Any other sufferers on here?

I usually get a couple of attacks a year, although I take medication daily (Pizotifen) to hopefully keep them at bay and I have Sumatriptan to help if/when they do hit.

They really are utterly debilitating - there have been a couple of occasions where I've been taken to hospital and needed liquid morphine to get the pain under control, so I can totally empathise with the guy in the article.

I read that article, although I don't suffer from them. I felt so sorry for the bloke. Now I feel sorry for you too. Best wishes to you and here's hoping they will subside in time. Nothing is forever.

 

[Frutos]

I read that article, although I don't suffer from them. I felt so sorry for the bloke. Now I feel sorry for you too. Best wishes to you and here's hoping they will subside in time. Nothing is forever.

Cheers.

 

[chickens]

Nothing worse than migraines for me, they make me sick until my stomach’s empty and leave me unable to bear any light or noise, so I have to lie still in a quiet and darkened room until they pass.

Thankfully, since about 8-9 years old, they’ve been rare and they’ve only lasted 24 hours at most, usually disappearing after I sleep.

Before that I could get them for 48-72 hours at a stretch. I remember at least two school holidays where I spent half of them laid up in bed feeling genuine agony if I could so much as hear family members moving round the house.

I’ve always felt massively embarrassed about trying to explain them to non-sufferers, who generally try to hide their feeling of “he’s got a headache and he’s acting like it’s the end of the world” but they tend to accept that it’s a genuine illness after they’re cleaning my vomit from their shoes.

 

[WATFORD zero]

BBC News - Agonising headaches make me bang my head off walls

Agonising headaches make me bang my head off walls

Daren Frankish says his cluster headaches are like being hit with a baseball bat and stabbed in the eye.

www.bbc.co.uk

Any other sufferers on here?

I usually get a couple of attacks a year, although I take medication daily (Pizotifen) to hopefully keep them at bay and I have Sumatriptan to help if/when they do hit.

They really are utterly debilitating - there have been a couple of occasions where I've been taken to hospital and needed liquid morphine to get the pain under control, so I can totally empathise with the guy in the article.

Thankfully I've never suffered, but do the have any idea what causes yours ?

 

[Frutos]

Thankfully I've never suffered, but do the have any idea what causes yours ?

Nope, no underlying cause has ever been found and there's no obvious trigger.

When I get an attack, it'll usually be every day for a week or two, at about the same time each day and the pain starts very localised, normally in the left temple in my case.

 

[portlock seagull]

BBC News - Agonising headaches make me bang my head off walls

Agonising headaches make me bang my head off walls

Daren Frankish says his cluster headaches are like being hit with a baseball bat and stabbed in the eye.

www.bbc.co.uk

Any other sufferers on here?

I usually get a couple of attacks a year, although I take medication daily (Pizotifen) to hopefully keep them at bay and I have Sumatriptan to help if/when they do hit.

They really are utterly debilitating - there have been a couple of occasions where I've been taken to hospital and needed liquid morphine to get the pain under control, so I can totally empathise with the guy in the article.

I read before you posted it. Never heard of before and I felt sick reading. My god, you have my sincere and deepest sympathies. It sounds horrific.

 

[WATFORD zero]

Nope, no underlying cause has ever been found and there's no obvious trigger.

When I get an attack, it'll usually be every day for a week or two, at about the same time each day and the pain starts very localised, normally in the left temple in my case.

Mrs Wz used to get really bad migraines many years ago, but they seemed to stop for no apparent reason. Can only hope you get a similar result over time

 

[Frutos]

I read before you posted it. Never heard of before and I felt sick reading. My god, you have my sincere and deepest sympathies. It sounds horrific.

Thank you.

 

[ofco8]

A couple of years ago I woke when it felt like a bloody big axe had been struck across my head. I couldn't get up for about an hour. The next morning exactly the same happened so I contacted the doc who called me in to see him straight away. After a chat he gave me a letter to go straight to A&E because he was worried I had a brain bleed.
So, I arrived at RSCH A & E at 7pm, it was a Friday night. After an initial consultation I was told to sit in the waiting room to wait to see a specialist. Myself and wife waited and waited. Gradually all the drunks and nutters arrived, one handcuffed to two policemen.
At midnight my wife went to find out what was happening and was told I was in a bed in the ward they initially observe you. She told them I was still sitting in the waiting room. A nurse rushed to me with a wheel chair and I was yanked off to said ward.
I stayed all night and in the morning a consultant told me he thought I had suffered from cluster headaches. I was sent home with no brain scan or medication and never had a problem before or since. Strange.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Mrs Wz used to get really bad migraines many years ago, but they seemed to stop for no apparent reason. Can only hope you get a similar result over time

I had really debilitating migraines as a young teenager up to 19, and then to a lesser extent in middle age, so suspect it was hormones. They then stopped. .

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

BBC News - Agonising headaches make me bang my head off walls

Agonising headaches make me bang my head off walls

Daren Frankish says his cluster headaches are like being hit with a baseball bat and stabbed in the eye.

www.bbc.co.uk

Any other sufferers on here?

I usually get a couple of attacks a year, although I take medication daily (Pizotifen) to hopefully keep them at bay and I have Sumatriptan to help if/when they do hit.

They really are utterly debilitating - there have been a couple of occasions where I've been taken to hospital and needed liquid morphine to get the pain under control, so I can totally empathise with the guy in the article.

Literally feel your pain, it sounds awful.

Sumatriptan is the headache drug of Gods incidentally.

Used to suffer terribly from migraines rather than cluster headaches. I changed some of the other medication I was on, and thankfully it has worked and I’ve only had about two in the last year.

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

Nope, no underlying cause has ever been found and there's no obvious trigger.

When I get an attack, it'll usually be every day for a week or two, at about the same time each day and the pain starts very localised, normally in the left temple in my case.

There is a national headache hospital in London that can be worth a try.

 

[upthealbion1970]

I suffered with multiple migraines from my teens and still occasionally now although much less frequently than in their height in my mid 30s. I ended up seeing a neurologist for about 3 years who prescribed me over a dozen different medicines to try and prevent them, think it was about the 15th one that they slowed right down to once every few months instead of 4 or 5 in a week. My main triggers are lack of sleep, being dehydrated and if I have too much coffee. I get maybe 2 a year now although they sometimes just happen, all the doctors I’ve seen have also said nobody can be sure exactly why I’ve had them. It’s always a challenge explaining to non migraine sufferers that the headache is only 1 of the symptoms of a migraine and everybody has different combinations, I know when I’ve got one coming as I struggle to get my words out, get the squiggles (aura or visual disturbance like the after effects of multiple camera flashes that grow and leave me with appalling vision) sound quite bladdered and slur a bit, lean to my left and will randomly drop stuff in the hours leading upto an attack.
At their worst I’d have 4 or 5 in a 3 or 4 day spell every 3-4 weeks and have been known to be wiped out for an entire week.

 

[AZ Gull]

A couple of years ago I woke when it felt like a bloody big axe had been struck across my head. I couldn't get up for about an hour. The next morning exactly the same happened so I contacted the doc who called me in to see him straight away. After a chat he gave me a letter to go straight to A&E because he was worried I had a brain bleed.
So, I arrived at RSCH A & E at 7pm, it was a Friday night. After an initial consultation I was told to sit in the waiting room to wait to see a specialist. Myself and wife waited and waited. Gradually all the drunks and nutters arrived, one handcuffed to two policemen.
At midnight my wife went to find out what was happening and was told I was in a bed in the ward they initially observe you. She told them I was still sitting in the waiting room. A nurse rushed to me with a wheel chair and I was yanked off to said ward.
I stayed all night and in the morning a consultant told me he thought I had suffered from cluster headaches. I was sent home with no brain scan or medication and never had a problem before or since. Strange.

Is it possible your wife did actually strike you across your head with an axe?

 

[portslade seagull]

Wife suffers with migraines which knocks her out for 2-3 days with sickness as well

 

[POSKETT AT THE VALLEY]

I’ve been getting migraines since my early teens. I‘m 61 and still get them. Regard them as a curse. I take sumatriptan and codeine upon the onset. Sometimes, however, they don’t seem to have an impact.

I don’t touch cheese, caffeine and chocolate but still haven‘t pinpointed the trigger.

I’ve had to adapt to the cards I’ve been dealt with, but often think as to now many days in my life have been lost to headaches.

Nevertheless I can’t complain. UTA

 

[swd40]

Nope, no underlying cause has ever been found and there's no obvious trigger.

When I get an attack, it'll usually be every day for a week or two, at about the same time each day and the pain starts very localised, normally in the left temple in my case.

Exactly the same, and weirdly usually only get them during specific months.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I've done a bit of reading on this. Sumatriptan mimics an endogenous neurotransmitter called serotonin (also known as 5-HT). It mimics its effects on two of the many different receptors (target molecules) that serotonin can act on. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter in the brain. When the 5-HT B and D receptors are activated (the effect is called 'agonism') in certain nerve areas in the brain this inhibits the release of another brain neurotransmitter called "calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP)". This substance can trigger the sensation of pain in parts of the brain. It seems to be a maladaption that the brain can make and release a substance that can cause pain.

New therapies are likely to be directed at CGRP, although progress has not been great owing to the poor pharmacokinetics (bioavailability and metabolism) of the drugs tested to date. These are GCRP antagonists (that block CGRP receptors in the brain) known as 'gepants'. Examples are olcegepant which has a low oral bioavailability and telcagepant which causes liver toxicity. As with many good ideas, sometimes the drugs that do what you want are limited because their structure makes them unavailable or unsafe. It is always a problem when the drug needs to get into the brain, because we have evolved a mechanism that prevents toxic and foreign molecules leaving brain blood vessels and getting into brain nerve cells (the 'blood brain barrier'). Only certain types of chemicals can easily cross into the brain and it seems that gepanst aren't one of them. This means they have a 'class' limitation.

 

[essbee1]

I don't know about headaches (and I feel for the people on here who suffer not trying to make light of it), but my brain has just exploded with
HWT's wordsmithing.