Cluster Headaches Are The Most Painful You Will Ever Experience
Posted on August 17, 2008
Filed Under Wellness |
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Cluster headaches are arquably one of the most painful conditions known to man and their only saving grace is that they are fortunately fairly rare. For instance, although approximately one person out of every ten of the population suffers from migraine headaches, only about one person in three hundred will experience a cluster headache.
Cluster headaches generally appear as what a lot of sufferers describe as a hot and stabbing pain behind only one eye or in the region of the temple. Their key characteristic however is that they follow a timetable and appear at roughly the same time every day often for several days, weeks or months at a time. They also have a tendency to strike without any warning, unlike migraine headaches which are often preceded by several different warning signs.
Noone is quite sure what causes these very painful headaches though research favors the theory that they result from abnormalities in the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is a small gland that has an important role to play in regulating the body clock and this may explain why headaches occur at roughly the same time each day.
Another feature of cluster headaches that sets them apart from migraines is that are far more commonly seen in men than in women. In the case of migraines about three times as many women as men are afflicted but, with cluster headaches, studies show that they are seen up to eight times more often in men.
Standard treatments for normal headaches are almost always useless for cluster headaches and this is one sort of headache for which you have to seek professional advice from your doctor.
One often used treatment is that of inhaling pure oxygen for a few minutes once the headache begins. This particular form of treatment does not work for everybody but usually works very well for those who do find that it is helpful. It cannot however be used to prevent a cluster headache and is only effective in treating a headache once it has begun.
Another extremely effective treatment is the use of a new form of drugs called triptans which are at present being used for the treatment of migraine headaches. These drugs must however be taken in a very fast acting form to be effective and this generally means taking them in the form of a nasal spray. However, in many cases cluster headaches can cause inflammation of the nasal passages rendering this sort of treatment difficult. When this happens, triptans can sometimes be given by injection.
At the moment there are no really effective preventative treatments available though a few sufferers do find that calcium channel blockers work fairly well. Also, in very severe cases surgery might be considered as a last resort treatment and a number of neurological procedures are available which include procedures which block certain nerves and that remove a section of the brain.
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