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        New Message Board Archives >> 2005 Cluster Headache Specific Posts >> Fresh Research - History of CH
        
(Message started by: floridian on Mar 7^th, 2005, 8:45am)

Title: Fresh Research - History of CH
Post by floridian on Mar 7^th, 2005, 8:45am

Interesting article on the history of clusters - the earliest description goes back to 1641.

Quote:

Curr Pain Headache Rep. 2005 Apr;9(2):132-4.

History of cluster headache.

Gordon N. Brown University, 450 Veterans Memorial Parkway, East Providence, RI 02914, USA. NGordon@Lifespan.org.

Possibly because of the manifestation of severe debilitating pain, cluster headache has been identified in early publications, described in exquisite detail by authors dating as far back as 1641. These early descriptions focused on the symptoms of the episodes rather than the periodicity of their occurrence. Similar to most medical conditions described without anatomic or clearly defined pathophysiologic basis, cluster headache often was named for its clinical manifestations, or less helpfully, by the names of the authors of its descriptive publications. It was only in 1952 that the condition was named for its peculiar tendency to occur in clusters over a period of weeks rather than being a chronic, recurrent, episodic condition similar to migraine. Despite having such an interesting mix of autonomic and physical features, this observation seems to be most instrumental in divulging the true pathogenesis of this disease and correctly localizing its origin anatomically in the hypothalamus.

Title: Re: Fresh Research - History of CH
Post by Langa on Mar 7^th, 2005, 9:32pm

Thanks Flo...

You have to wonder how they got through in those times?? [smiley=huh.gif]

Langa

Title: Re: Fresh Research - History of CH
Post by Sean_C on Mar 7^th, 2005, 10:58pm

on 03/07/05 at 21:32:15, Langa wrote:

You have to wonder how they got through in those times?? [smiley=huh.gif]

I feel old now [smiley=laugh.gif] Was it that long ago? [smiley=laugh.gif]

Title: Re: Fresh Research - History of CH
Post by Tom on Mar 8^th, 2005, 5:41pm

The first known description of CH dates back to the 17th century, indeed:

The that time author was Dr. Nicholaas (or Nicholaes) Tulp (1593-1674), a Dutch physician, surgeon, and burgomaster of Amsterdam. He was eternalized by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn in the painting "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicholaes Tulp" in 1632 - Dr. Tulp is the central figure and anatomy lecturer with the black hat, look at:

http://www.ibiblio.org/louvre/paint/auth/rembrandt/1630/nicolaes-tulp.jpg
http://art.mygalerie.com/les%20maitres/rembr8.html
http://vidal-p.club.fr/baroque/hollande/rembrandt/lecon.htm

The painting can be seen in the Mauritshuis in Den Haag.

The second known description was written by another Dutch physician, Dr. Gerard van Swieten in 1745 - several recent neurologists stress that van Swieten's that time's description still matches the today's criteria of the IHS for CH! Prof. P. Goadsby writes: "Cluster headache has been recognized for over 350 years, and there is an excellent clinical description in Van Swieten's textbook ...". Here an excerpt from van Swieten's text:

«...In the beginning of the summer season, [he] was afflicted with a very severe headache, occuring and disappearing daily on fixed hours, with such an intensity that he often assured me that he could not bear the pain anymore or he would succumbe shortly. for rarely it lasted longer than two hours. And the rest of the day there were no fever, nor indisposition of the urine, nor any infirmity of the pulse. But this recurring pain lasted until the fourteenth day...he asked nature for help, ...and lost a great amount of fluid from the nose...[and] was relieved in a short period of time...» (Nicholaas Tulp, 1641).

(for more: http://www.sma.org/smj1998/julysmj98/july_cme.pdf)

Thomas

Title: Re: Fresh Research - History of CH
Post by Kris_in_SJ on Mar 8^th, 2005, 8:14pm

And it still comes down to that damned hypothalamus!

Kris

Title: Re: Fresh Research - History of CH
Post by seasonalboomer on Mar 9^th, 2005, 3:47pm

I'm sure there have been more than a couple exorcisms performed to "rid ye of the beast" over history.

Can you hear it:
"Come out! Come out ye beast that inhabits thy brother's eyeball"

Or maybe a few public stonings for demon-possession. And the CH sufferer standing there screaming. "No, throw a little higher, right here in the right eye. Harder!"

Or in Dickensian times:
"That boy's just not quite right is he? I'm sure there's a good bed for im' up at Bedlam there is."

What fun history can be?

Title: Re: Fresh Research - History of CH
Post by Frank_W on Mar 9^th, 2005, 3:56pm

*memories of woodcuts showing doctors of old, drilling holes in patients' skulls for headache relief...* :o

(Hey, would a 3/8's bit work?) [smiley=laugh.gif]

Title: Re: Fresh Research - History of CH
Post by seasonalboomer on Mar 9^th, 2005, 4:01pm

"drilling holes in peoples heads"

Aren't there people on these boards who have had that done?

Title: Re: Fresh Research - History of CH
Post by BikerBob on Mar 9^th, 2005, 4:30pm

Yikes, that goes back over 300 years. We've come a long way.

I remember 30 years ago, all those trips to the ER for a shot of Demerol in the butt. Then they switched to shots of Stadol, then prescriptions for Stadol nasal spray. So many trips to zombie-land and kablooey-ville.

Remember the original Imitrex injectors? Much bigger than today's pens, designed for shots in the thigh, with the red trigger button on the side. The syringes even had plungers so you didn't have to use a Q-tip for partial doses. I guess they changed the design so the syringes wouldn't be reusable.

I predict that within 20 years there will be prescription "alternative therapy" capsules that will make the horrors of the beast a thing of the past.

Bob

Title: Re: Fresh Research - History of CH
Post by zrmulcahy on Mar 9^th, 2005, 11:34pm

I bet you're onto something with the demon possession boomer. Here are some Biblical accounts...

1They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes.[a] 2When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil[b] spirit came from the tombs to meet him. 3This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. 4For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. 5Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.

37The next day, when they came down from the mountain, a large crowd met him. 38A man in the crowd called out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. 39A spirit seizes him and he suddenly screams; it throws him into convulsions so that he foams at the mouth. It scarcely ever leaves him and is destroying him. 40I begged your disciples to drive it out, but they could not.”

The stuff we do is not that different...I bet we'd all get the demon label right away! Heck, maybe we are all demon possessed.

Title: Re: Fresh Research - History of CH
Post by Missy_Donna on Mar 10^th, 2005, 8:52am

The hole drilling that happened is too scarey to think about., but I really wonder if I would have tried it when having a K10.

Mine started around 1960 and of course no one knew what the heck they were, so, I too, made a couple of trips to the ER just to be knocked out for a little while.

Thank God that I only had a few 10's. I usually shot up from 0 to 8 or 9 in about 5 minutes, but the 10's were what we know as suicide headaches. More often than not, by the time I got to see the doc, the headache had disappeared.

The only medication given for these headaches (Hortons' Cephalgia, or histamine headaches) was Tylenol3 (with codeine) which didn't do a thing but give me a stomach ache.

Thank God, those days are over for me and I pray the same for all of you.

Title: Re: Fresh Research - History of CH
Post by sandie99 on Mar 15^th, 2005, 12:40pm

on 03/07/05 at 21:32:15, Langa wrote:

You have to wonder how they got through in those times?

I was wondering the same thing... :(

Title: Re: Fresh Research - History of CH
Post by Redd715 on Mar 16^th, 2005, 7:48am

Quote:

Remember the original Imitrex injectors? Much bigger than today's pens, designed for shots in the thigh, with the red trigger button on the side.

You mean this bad boy?

http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b4d724b3127cce99b85ded715c00000016108AauGjFu2ZNh

Still have it obviously.....isn't that a real kicker....

to add: about the reuse of the syringes...I used to keep a couple of them in the tackle box to fill night crawlers with air when fishing for catfish.

Title: Re: Fresh Research - History of CH
Post by PCMCCK on Mar 16^th, 2005, 8:43am

How did people cope years ago? Remember, up until about 1911, heroin was legal (developed, I believed, to help Civil War veterans get off of the morphine that they had become addicted to as a result of the treatment for their wounds) and could be ordered from the Sears & Roebuck catalogue; cocaine was legal and was the "miracle" ingredient in "Coca Cola" and most so called "patent medicines", i.e., laudenum, were nothing more than opium dissolved in alcohol with some herbs or flavorings. The situation was the same in Europe as in the US-everyone was high! I forget the name of the law that the federal government passed in 1911 that made all of these drugs illegal (unless you had a special tax stamp, obtainable from the feds; as a kid I remember my old family doc had one of these). Just as prohibition gave organized crime its boost, the criminalization, overnight, of all of the drugs made for a whole new class of criminals-no attempts were made to treat those who were addicted (and many led productive lives because they could get their drugs cheaply at the neighborhood pharmacy or from Sears), drug related crime shot up, selling illegal drugs became-and remains-very profitable and the number of drug addicts increased, but they couldn't lead productive lives because they had to do illegal things to finance their now expensive illegal habits. Of course, for the most part, we still want to lock up drug users and throw away the key-remember the wonderful Rockefeller laws in NY State-and rehab started getting some funding when serious drug use, i.e., heroin, cocaine, etc., entered the middle class white communities, but it is still a pittance. Whoops, sorry, got carried away, was just going to comment on how people coped years ago with CH pain-did that at the beginning of this post,