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        New Message Board Archives >> 2003 Posts >> Misunderstanding of CH by the medical community
        
(Message started by: ijunG4 on Jun 12^th, 2003, 1:18pm)

Title: Misunderstanding of CH by the medical community
Post by ijunG4 on Jun 12^th, 2003, 1:18pm

This is just a rant.

I'm sure all of us have seen CH getting mixed up as migraines in the general media. As if that wasn't bad enough, I've recently come across people in the medical field getting them mixed up.

One is actually a friend of mine who is a pharmacist; he must have assumed it was the same thing when I mentioned Imitrex. The other one was my optometrist; she was sympathizing with me and that she gets them also--but the symptoms she described were migraine, not CH!

I find it a bit difficult to correct people who supposedly have degrees in medicine. No wonder the media gets it wrong! I guess I'm just lucky to even have a neuro who understands.

We have a symbiotic/antagonistic relationship with migraine sufferers, don't we? We benefit from migraine research, such as with Imitrex. At the same time, the world does a great injustice to the understanding of CH when they simply position CH as "migraines for men", because:
1. we aren't all men, and
2. the order of magnitude of the pain just isn't even the same!

I think the ultimate frustration of CH is that no one really understands our pain. That is, except by another CH sufferer, which is why the online CH community is SO important.

Thanks to DJ for creating this forum; I remember the dark ages not so long ago when each of us was alone in fighting the devil and it was all but impossible to find a doctor with enough understanding. There is still too much ignorance out there, but I think more and more people are finally starting to at least be aware of CH.

Title: Re: Misunderstanding of CH by the medical communit
Post by Marc on Jun 12^th, 2003, 2:12pm

Quote:

We have a symbiotic/antagonistic relationship with migraine sufferers, don't we?

That's a good line - you're right.

Marc

Title: Re: Misunderstanding of CH by the medical communit
Post by Charlie on Jun 12^th, 2003, 11:54pm

Welcome and maybe this is something to look into. I think Simon does a great job here:

http://www.ouch-uk.org/ch/note_colleagues.cfm

Charlie

Title: Re: Misunderstanding of CH by the medical communit
Post by ijunG4 on Jun 13^th, 2003, 1:00am

Charlie,

Thanks for the link man, that is indeed a great piece of work.

You can tell the thing is written by a fellow sufferer because of the emphasis on the MF PAIN; the clinical documentation written by doctors comparing CH to migraines seem to gloss over that tiny little detail...

I am going to ask my friends and family to read that piece.