« Uses Of Philosophy III | Home | Facts About Oral Cancer »
Cluster Headache
By peace | July 8, 2006
Cluster headache is far less common than migraine headache or tension headache. Cluster headaches begin far more dramatically, however, and remain quite unique in their course over time.
As the name suggests, the cluster headache exhibits a clustering of painful attacks over a period of many weeks. The pain of a cluster headache peaks in about 5 minutes and may last for an hour. Someone with a cluster headache may get several headaches a day for weeks at a time — perhaps months — usually interrupted by a pain-free period of variable length.
In contrast to people with migraine headache, perhaps 5-8 times as many men as women have cluster headache. Most people get their first cluster headache at age 25 years, although they may experience their first attacks in their teens to early 50s.
Based on the length of the cluster periods and the remission periods, the International Headache Society has classified cluster headache into two types:
- Episodic. In this form, cluster headache occurs daily for one week to one year, followed by a pain-free remission period lasting weeks to years before another cluster period develops.
- Chronic. In this form, cluster headache occurs daily for more than a year with no remission or with pain-free periods lasting less than two weeks.
About 10 percent to 20 percent of people with cluster headache have the chronic type. Chronic cluster headache may develop after a period of episodic attacks, or it may develop spontaneously, without a prior history of headaches. Some people experience alternating episodic and chronic phases.
Researchers point to different mechanisms to explain the major characteristics of cluster headache. There may be a family history of cluster headache in some people with this condition, meaning a possible genetic component. Several factors may work together to produce cluster headache.
Cluster Headache Symptoms The pain of cluster headache is its defining and most dramatic feature. This pain comes on without warning (no forewarning symptoms such as the aura in classic migraine) and may begin as a burning sensation on the side of your nose or deep in your eye.
The pain peaks in just a few minutes. People describe the feeling as having an ice pick driven through your eye. They use words such as “excruciating,” “explosive,” and “deep.” This stabbing eye pain carries with it a rapid electrical-shocklike element, which may last for a few seconds, and a deeper element that continues for a half-hour or longer. The pain almost always begins in your eye and always on 1 side of your face. Interestingly, for most people the pain stays on the same side of the face from cluster to cluster, while in a small minority the pain switches to the opposite side during the next cluster.
In addition to its one-sidedness, other characteristics separate cluster headaches from other headaches.
- The headaches commonly come on just after you go to sleep.
- Often the eye on your affected side will tear.
- Your eyelid on the affected side will droop.
- You will experience one-sided nasal stuffiness and runny nose.
- Cluster headaches have seasonal variations. Most attacks occur in January and July, where the days are in turn the shortest and longest.
Outlook Cluster headache can be either ongoing or come and go, and people can jump from one type to the other. Many people who have cluster headache are pain-free for a year or longer, only to have the frustrating cycle of daily headaches begin again.
As is the case with migraine, people with cluster headaches respond to therapies that are widely available and are becoming less expensive. With proper medical treatment and guidance, you can control cluster headache.
Topics: All Posts, Diseases, Man's health, Woman's Health | No Comments »
