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        New Message Board Archives >> Jul-Sep 2003 >> Take a look
        
(Message started by: JDH on Sep 19^th, 2003, 9:35am)

Title: Take a look
Post by JDH on Sep 19^th, 2003, 9:35am

I found this in a Q&A article in this mornings St Louis Post Dispatch.
I don't know what kind of readership this Dr has but I'm thinking a lot more people know about CH's today than there were yesterday.
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Cluster headaches attack at night, retreat and reappear
By Dr. Paul Donohue
09/19/2003

Dear Dr. Donohue: I am a 32-year-old male who has enjoyed perfect health until now. Lately I have been getting severe headaches during the night. They wake me up, and I have to get out of bed, the pain is so bad. I take Tylenol, and they are gone in about half an hour. I am afraid to go to bed because of them. What gives?

You give the classic description of cluster headaches. They are headaches of indescribable pain that often come on at night, wake a person from deep sleep and drive that person to jump out of bed and pace through the house frantically. They usually don't last long.

They got the "cluster" name because they come in clusters - two or three in one 24-hour period, for consecutive days, weeks or months. Then they disappear, only to reappear at a future date.

The pain of a cluster headache is on one side of the head and usually centered around and behind the eye. Tears sometimes drip from that eye. The nostril on that side of the face often drips in sympathy with the eye.
It's hard to say if the Tylenol relieves your pain. Generally, the brevity of the headache is such that it is gone before any medicine has a chance to act.

Breathing pure oxygen from an oxygen tank can sometimes put a quick end to the headache. The oxygen tank is a bona fide medical expense for people with cluster headaches.

Sumatriptan is a migraine-headache medicine. It is also useful for cluster headaches. It comes as a nasal spray or as a self-injection. Those two routes speed the drug's absorption so it can act quickly on a cluster headache.

If these headaches come frequently, there are medicines that can be taken to prevent them.

Dr. Donohue
Readers may write him or request an order form of available health newsletters at P.O. Box 536475, Orlando, Fla. 32853-6475.

Quote:

If these headaches come frequently, there are medicines that can be taken to prevent them.

wtf? ???
obviously he's no expert BUT at least people are talking about them.

Jim