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(Message started by: cher on Feb 3rd, 2005, 4:11pm)

Title: thunderclap headaches
Post by cher on Feb 3rd, 2005, 4:11pm
just wanted to know have any you ever heard of thunderclap headaches or experienced one?  I know this guy who is a cluster sufferer and is chronic.  Recently though, he started to use the imitrex injections which he found worked extremely well, but, over the weekend he has been admitted to hospital because he has suffered with this other type of headache, his wife says he found it more painful than the cluster.  At the moment, he is on morphine and taking in the oxygen whilst in hospital.  Some idiot who saw him at another hospital told him he had an anurism and that he had bled three times, but when he was admitted to another hospital the neurologist said that that was not the case and then proceeded to say that what he was suffering from was thunderclap headaches.

What I was thinking was a few years ago, i had an episode of two months and 4, 5, 6 attackes per day.  Obviously, i took the injections to get rid of the cluster headache, but then, later on this particular day, i got one hell of a headache which actually did feel worse than the cluster i thought i was gonna die.  The thing is, i had had too many injections and the secondary headache was a result of this.

Please can you comment on this or give any info on what i have written, his wife is desperate to know if any of you out there are more knowledgable, maybe put her mind at ease and she could mention any info to her hubby while he is in hospital wonderin what the hell is going on.


Thanks guys

love ya

cher xxxx

Title: Re: thunderclap headaches
Post by nani on Feb 3rd, 2005, 4:14pm
All I know is that a thunderclap HA can precede a burst brain aneurysm. Seconds before I passed out from the brain bleed I got hit with a loud explosive pain- as if I could hear the vessel burst.

Title: Re: thunderclap headaches
Post by Margi on Feb 3rd, 2005, 4:30pm
Hi Cher - nice to see you posting again!!  :)

Here's some info on thunderclap headache.  Sounds like the jury's still out on cause and effect of these scary things.  

http://www.imigraine.net/other/thunder.html

here's another article on it:

http://www.relieve-migraine-headache.com/thunderclap-headache.html

yet another kind of headache that will illicit the following response from a practitioner:  "duh....i dunno".

Title: Re: thunderclap headaches
Post by cher on Feb 3rd, 2005, 4:43pm
thankyou, nani and margi, i will tell her tomorrow, but I am sure that this guy is getting the best care he needs at this time, i bloody hope so, lol.  I will report back and maybe i can give some insight in a few days time if i hear anything.

cher xxxx

Title: Re: thunderclap headaches
Post by catlind on Feb 3rd, 2005, 6:26pm
I've experienced a thunderclap headache.  It was shortly after the episode they thought was a stroke.  I went from fine to feeling certain that my head had blown apart.  It was well beyond the pain of a cluster.  Clark had to carry me to the car, I could not walk, could not talk, could not see.  At the ER they gave me demoral, dilaudid and toradol.  Morphine triggers clusters so they weren't about to do that.  It took a very long time (in my mind) to get the pain to a bearable level.  There was a HUGE HUGE difference between that headache and any migraine or cluster I've ever had.  No one has been able to tell me why it occured but the neuro thought it might have been in relation to a stroke.  It wasn't, but still no answer as to what it was.  That was the second time a doc told me (Dr. Bigal was the first) that there is no such thing as a 'normal' headache, all headaches are indicators of something going on.

Not much help, but I haven't had a recurrence, and I haven't dropped dead either, so I'm going to guess I'm good to go.

Cat

Title: Re: thunderclap headaches
Post by Lizzie2 on Feb 3rd, 2005, 6:36pm
I only know it in the way Nani does.  Most commonly a thunderclap headache is what precedes or occurs simultaneously with an aneurysm.  It actually can also be a symptom of unruptured aneurysm which is why it is important to be thoroughly checked out as unruptured aneurysms can be treated these days with surgery before they blow!

However on the flip side, I believe only half the time do people have a thunderclap headache with an unruptured aneurysm...and I'm not sure the rate with one that ruptures.  Often headache isn't always the #1 symptom when something serious happens in the brain organically...such as aneurysm or brain tumor, but it can be!  Brain tumor often presents first as a seizure.  

Thunderclap headache (also what they mean when they ask in the ER if this is the worst headache you've ever experienced in your life and if it is unlike any other headache you've ever had) is one of those "red flags" that actually all practitioners (ER, family, neuros...) really give good consideration to.  Or at least they should!  Since it is commonly associated with a brain bleed, it needs major attention!

Just a few thoughts on that...  Hope it is not any incidence of aneurysm!  Best of luck!

Hugz,
Lizzie2/Carrie :)

Title: Re: thunderclap headaches
Post by cher on Feb 7th, 2005, 6:47am
thanks peeps for your input,  The guy i know is out of hospital now and he has to carry some sort of card with him all the time just in case something happens again while he is out and about.  The hospital have told him it may never happen again and they couldnt find anything.  Just one of those wierd and not so wonderful things going on in the brain which we know so little about.  The best thing to do obviously is to keep each and everyone one of us informed of anything new we come across even the slightest detail could bring some insight into the mystery of our brains.

love you

cher x



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