[Misc] Cluster Headaches

[Eric the meek]

I don't have cluster headaches, but I do have posture/tension headaches.

I've got one right now. I am looking down at my laptop on the dining room table. Normally, I put the laptop on a box to raise the screen to near eye level.
When I press the muscles at the base of my skull, it hurts. I think my neck muscles are tensing up and pulling on my skull, causing the headaches. A press on the muscles in front of the top of my ears also hurts. For me, this pretty much confirms it.

But I'm also aware of a slight pain around the bone on the back of my neck, about 6 inches below where my neck muscles join my skull.

I'm no expert, but I've heard that sometimes, your headaches may be caused by other things, away from your head.

 

[drew]

If Cluster headaches are really bad does that mean experiencing a cluster f*** is really good?

 

[Surf's Up]

I had cluster headaches continuously for a period of approximately 15 months about 12 years ago. The pain was excruciating, usually running all the way down my left side trigeminal nerve and typically I would end up screaming with the paid. I was advised they were caused, in my case, by a combination of smoking and extreme work place stress. I was prescribed Verapamil to be taken on a prophylactic basis and, when experiencing an extreme attack, a self administered subcutaneous injection of Sumatripan. The Verapamil didn't really seem to do very much in the moment or prevent attacks but the Sumatripan went straight to the heart of the pain and relieved it but left me completely spaced out and exhausted for a good few hours after an attack. I stopped smoking and changed my jobs and ventually the headaches ceased. Maybe the Verapamil did have a beneficial long term effect. Anyway, I haven't had another cluster headache for a bout 10 years now, thank god and I no longer take any of the prescribed medication.

 

[Surf's Up]

Obviously - pain not paid

 

[Baldseagull]

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.

Not a sufferer myself, feel for you though. I saw a TV program a few years ago, it was one where a GP went and spent time living with patients to better understand their symptoms, lifestyle etc and how what they were doing or not doing might affect them. He had a patient with these suicide headaches, and ended up getting them a neck x ray that showed up a misalignment, treatment with a chiropractor got aligned and I believe that the headaches went away.