What exactly is a cluster headache?
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1. a cluster in a headache? or a cluster with a headache? or maybee its a type, idk go on ask.com and just search the question .2. Cluster headache, is a neurological disease that involves, as its most prominent feature, an immense degree of pain. "Cluster" refers to the tendency of these headaches to occur periodically, with active periods interrupted by spontaneous remissions. The cause of the disease is currently unknown. It affects approximately 0.1% of the population, and men are more commonly affected than women.
Contents [hide]
1 Signs and symptoms
1.1 Pain
1.2 Other symptoms
1.3 Cyclical recurrence and regular timing
1.3.1 Episodic or chronic
2 Other names
3 Prevalence
4 Pathophysiology
4.1 Hypothalamus
4.2 Genetics
4.3 Triggers
4.4 Smoking
5 Treatment
5.1 Abortive treatment
5.2 Prophylactic treatment
5.3 Non-established and research approaches
6 Other types of headache
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
[edit] Signs and symptoms
Cluster headaches are excruciating unilateral headaches,[1] of extreme intensity.[2] The duration of the common attack ranges from as short as 15 minutes to three hours or more. The onset of an attack is rapid, and most often without the preliminary signs that are characteristic of a migraine. However, some sufferers report preliminary sensations of pain in the general area of attack, often referred to as "shadows", that may warn them an attack is imminent. Though the headaches are almost exclusively unilateral, there are many documented as cases of "side-shifting" between cluster periods, or, even rarer, simultaneously (within the same cluster period) bilateral headache. They are often initially mistaken for brain tumors and multiple sclerosis until patients are treated with corticosteroids and then imaged. Trigeminal neuralgia can also bring on headaches with similar qualities.
[edit] Pain
The degree of pain involved in cluster headaches is markedly greater than in other headache conditions, including severe migraines, and experts believe that it may be the most severe pain known to medical science. It has been described by female patients as being more severe than childbirth.[3] Dr. Peter Goadsby, Professor of Clinical Neurology at University College, London, a leading researcher on the condition has commented, “Cluster headache is probably the worst pain that humans experience. I know that’s quite a strong remark to make, but if you ask a cluster headache patient if they’ve had a worse experience, they’ll universally say they haven’t. Women with cluster headache will tell you that an attack is worse than giving birth. So you can imagine that these people give birth without anesthetic once or twice a day, for six, eight or ten weeks at a time, and then have a break. It’s just awful.” [1] The pain is lancinating or boring in quality, and is located behind the eye (periorbital) or in the temple, sometimes radiating to the neck or shoulder. Analogies frequently used to describe the pain are a red-hot poker inserted into the eye, or a spike penetrating from the top of the head, behind one eye, radiating down to the neck, or sometimes having a leg amputated without any anaesthetic. The condition was originally named Horton's Neuralgia after Dr. B.T Horton, who postulated the first theory as to their pathogenesis. His original paper describes the severity of the headaches as being able to take normal men and force them to suicide. Indeed, cluster headaches are also known by the nickname "suicide headaches".
From Horton's 1939 original paper on cluster headache:
Our patients were disabled by the disorder and suffered from bouts of pain from two to twenty times a week. They had found no relief from the usual methods of treatment. Their pain was so severe that several of them had to be constantly watched for fear of suicide. Most of them were willing to submit to any operation which might bring relief.
[edit] Other symptoms
The cardinal symptoms of the cluster headache attack are ptosis (drooping eyelid), conjunctival injection (redness of the conjunctiva - the covering of the eyeball), lacrimation (tearing), rhinorrhea (runny nose), and, less commonly, facial blushing, swelling, or sweating. These features are known as the autonomic symptoms. The attack is also associated with restlessness, the sufferer often pacing the room or rocking back and forth. Less frequently, he or she will have an aversion to bright lights and loud noise during the attack. Nausea is sometimes accompanied with a cluster headache, though it has been reported. The neck is often stiff or tender in the aftermath of a headache, with jaw or tooth pain sometimes present. Some sufferers report feeling as though their nose is stopped up and that they are unable to breathe out of one of their nostrils.
[edit] Cyclical recurrence and regular timing
Cluster headaches are occasionally referred to as "alarm clock headaches", because of its ability to wake a person from sleep, and because of the regularity of its timing in that both the individual attacks and the c
3. As Paul said, cluster headaches mean the the headaches come in a series, then go away for awhile before returning in another series. Women sometimes get them in association with their menstrual cycle. There seems to be a correlation between hormone levels and when you get the headaches.
Besides being a nurse, I used to get them for many years... until I had a hysterectomy... and then they totally went away.
