Clusterheadaches.com Message Board


    
      
        Clusterheadaches.com Message Board
        (http://www.clusterheadaches.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi)
      

        New Message Board Archives >> 2003 Posts >> New and confused, please help!!
        
(Message started by: Debgene56 on Apr 28^th, 2003, 4:11pm)

Title: New and confused, please help!!
Post by Debgene56 on Apr 28^th, 2003, 4:11pm

Hi everyone, I am new here and new to pains in my head. My doc told me this morning I was having cluster headaches, If I give the details, could you please let me know what you think.

First I do have fibromyalgia, tmj,sinus and allergies.

Last Thursday I started getting pain in the upper right side of my head, about 2 fingerwidths behind my ear. I got sharp,intense quick stabs, about 2-3 sec long. They started off mild and worked up in intensity. I was getting about 10 per minute. I don't like drugs, so took nothing. By Saturday night I was climbing the walls and pacing. Broke down and tood advil, it took it away except for breakthru pain. I have been taking advil about three times a day when I get the pain. I have also had my right eye feel like it is being squuezed, my right nostril stuffed and my right cheek feels like a sinus infection. I have had this several times, goes away inbetween. If I touch my head when I have the pains it hurts to the touch. Sometimes when I sneeze, shake my head, blow my nose, it hurts like hell.

Today I had something different. I had the pains this morning. Then this afternoon, I started with a sore ache from the spot where I get the pains and it traveled thru to my eye. My eye felt really tight and dry, my nose and cheek hurt. Then the stabbing pains started. Advil calmed the pains down except for breakthru. But my eye,nose and cheek and the ache in my head remained. The back of my head is achey this time. I have no fever.

So I am confused, I am not certain if these are cluster or not, but my doc said yes.

Any advice you could give me would be appreciated. My doc did a neruo check and looked in my nose and ears and checked my neck and spine.
Thanks guys!!!
Debgene56

Title: Re: New and confused, please help!!
Post by Margi on Apr 28^th, 2003, 4:14pm

Hi Deb
sure sounds more like CPH (Chronic Paroxysmal Hemicrania) than cluster, because of the duration and frequency of attacks.
Ask your doc if you can try a course of indocin/indomethacin. It's reported to be 100% effective on CPH.
Hope this helps.

Title: Re: New and confused, please help!!
Post by Debgene56 on Apr 28^th, 2003, 4:39pm

Hi Margi,

I looked up CPH, it said they last from 2-45 minutes untreated. Mine last at least an hour after taking advil. So I don't know, but I will bring info to doc on followup. Thanks!! Deb

Title: Re: New and confused, please help!!
Post by cathy on Apr 28^th, 2003, 4:53pm

Hi Deb and welcome I hope you get the correct diagnosis soon if it is CH then you've found the best place for info, advice and support. Keep us posted.

Cathy :)

Title: Re: New and confused, please help!!
Post by eyes_afire on Apr 28^th, 2003, 6:12pm

Hi Deb. No one here can make a definate diagnosis for you but we can point you in some direction. Based upon your description:

Quote:

I got sharp,intense quick stabs, about 2-3 sec long. They started off mild and worked up in intensity. I was getting about 10 per minute.

Quote:

If I touch my head when I have the pains it hurts to the touch. Sometimes when I sneeze, shake my head, blow my nose, it hurts like hell.

maybe you should investigate the possibility of Trigeminal Neuralgia. I'm not very familiar with TN, but based upon some recent reading I've learned that external stimulii (such as touching) can fire it up.

If I'm wrong, someone please correct me...
Anyway, it can't hurt to type it into your favorite search engine, there are lots of TN sites.

Title: Re: New and confused, please help!!
Post by Opus on Apr 28^th, 2003, 6:22pm

Debgene,
Ch is a constant pain usually behind the eye that is so painful that it will take your breath away. There are usually no variations in the pain. Not pounding, not stabbing, it is most like someone boring into your eye with a red hot poker. If your pain is like this the you may have clusters. Try and take the cluster quiz on the left and for your sake I hope you do have something else.
Opus :P

Title: Re: New and confused, please help!!
Post by cootie on Apr 28^th, 2003, 9:50pm

Hi Debgene56...hope ya sort out what's goin on with yer doc.....good luck to you !!! Always confused myself Pam ;)

Title: Re: New and confused, please help!
Post by Drk^Angel on Apr 28^th, 2003, 11:31pm

According to the IHS, The trigeminal-autonomic cephalgias (TACs) share the clinical features of headache with prominent cranial parasympathetic autonomic features. These features include

1. Conjunctival injection and/or lacrimation
2. Nasal congestion and/or rhinorrhoea
3. Ptosis and/or miosis

You must have at least one of the above (or possibly restlessness and/or agitation) for your headache to be classified a TAC.

The TACs are:

1. 3.1 Cluster Headache: Attacks last 30 to 180 mins
2. 3.2 Paroxysmal Hemicrania: Attacks last 2 to 30 mins
3. 3.3 SUNCT: Attacks last 10 to 120 secs
4. 3.4 Hemicrania Continua: Attacks last at least 2 months

According to your discription... Your headache may possibly qualify as a TAC because you pace, but there is no TAC classified with attacks lasting only 2 - 3 seconds. It's possible this could be classified as a 3.5 Probable Trigeminal Autonomic Cephalgias not otherwise classifiable, but it would seem to me as though it could also be 4.1 Primary Stabbing Headache:

4.1. Primary stabbing headache

Previously used terms: Ice-pick pains, jabs and jolts, ophtalmodynia periodica

Description: Transient stabs of pain in the head that occur spontaneously in the absence of organic disease of underlying structures or of the cranial nerves.

Diagnostic criteria:
A. Pain occurring as a single stab or a series of stabs confined to the head and exclusively or predominantly felt in the distribution of the first division of the trigeminal nerve (orbit, temple and parietal area).
B. Each stab lasts for up to few seconds.
C. Stabs recur with a frequency ranging from one to many per day, in rare cases they occur repetitively over days.
D. No accompanying symptoms.
E. Not attributed to another disorder.

Comment: In a single published descriptive study, 80% of the stabs lasted 3 seconds or less. The occurrence in status lasting up to one week (active period) was reported. Stabbing pains are more commonly experienced by people subject to migraine (about 40%) and cluster headache (about 30%), in which case they are felt in the site habitually affected by headache. Stabs may change from one area to the next in either the same or the opposite hemicranium. When strictly localized in one particular area, diagnosis depends upon the exclusion of structural changes at the site of pain and in the distribution of the affected cranial nerve. Positive response to the indomethacin administration is reported in non controlled studies.

PFDAN..................................... Drk^Angel

Title: Re: New and confused, please help!!
Post by Debgene56 on Apr 29^th, 2003, 12:08pm

Thank you everyone!!! Thanks for all the info also in the last reply. I don't think it is cluster headaches any more, but I fit the stabbing pain post. It is getting better today. Also seems to to have something to do with my allergies I think. Pollen has been very high last two days.

Thanks again for your help, hope your all pain free!!
Deb