Hi.  My husband was diagnosed with CH last year.  He also seems to have a propensity for infection, and I've been doing some home research about CH and infection.  Came across some studies that showed some patients with CH had a primary diagnosis of bacterial infection, eg, aspergilloma.  Anyone have this type of experience? :-?

No.

   Potter

I suffer from chronic hidradenitis suppurativa. I doubt the two conditions are connected, however.

No, quite the oppposite as I never get sick and rarely have issues with wounds healing. I was told to be careful when on prednisone as that can have a compromising effect on my immune system.

Joe

I had CH for years and never had such problems until an overly prolonged course of prednisone walloped my immune system.

no infections here.

Links please, because so far, I haven't been able to find any thing like what you are referring to.

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The below is a 15 year old study and it refers to *clusterlike* headache.

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ABSTRACT
Clusterlike headaches secondary to structural disease have been described. Nevertheless, most of the reports antedate the International Headache Society classification and, indeed, only a few appear to fit its criteria for a diagnosis of cluster headache. We report here a case of sphenoidal sinus aspergilIoma that fully complies with the criteria for cluster headache. This kind of lesion has never been described previously as a cause of a clusterlike headache.

bejeeber wrote on Feb 20^th, 2010 at 6:47pm:

I had CH for years and never had such problems until an overly prolonged course of prednisone walloped my immune system.

Yes, what bejeeber said.

ooooh how FASCINATING.  I am only 28 but have been plagued w/ infection issues for many, many years. In 2009 I had strep throat 11 times. Every single surgery I've ever had has ended in a staph infection and/or ecoli... I'd had recurrent cdif since my 1st baby was born yrs ago. I've always wondered (along w/ my renal specialists, infectious disease specialists, etc) what on earth is wrong w/ my immune system that doesn't show up on any test results.   If there was a link w/ cluster headaches I'd be very interested indeed

How about poor wound healing? Is there a connection w/ CH's and that?

I used to suffer chronically from sinusitis, but it has improved a lot since I moved to the Massif Central.  The air up here is much cleaner, so perhaps air pollution aggravated my condition.  Whereas my CH has changed from occurring episodically to now being chronic.

So clean air can perhaps aggravate CH to become chronic?

deltadarlin wrote on Feb 21^st, 2010 at 10:31am:

Clusterlike headaches secondary to structural disease have been described. Nevertheless, most of the reports antedate the International Headache Society classification and, indeed, only a few appear to fit its criteria for a diagnosis of cluster headache. We report here a case of sphenoidal sinus aspergilIoma that fully complies with the criteria for cluster headache. This kind of lesion has never been described previously as a cause of a clusterlike headache.

If a pattern of headaches fully meets the diagnostic criteria for cluster headache, it IS cluster headache.

Use of the term 'clusterlike' in this context is imprecise and introduces unnecessary ambiguity. 

Brew wrote on Feb 24^th, 2010 at 1:48pm:

So clean air can perhaps aggravate CH to become chronic?

I don't think, you think, that's what I was thinking, but thinking about about it now, I think my wording lacked enough clear thought.  Think I'll resist the temptation of thinking about it any further though, because all this thinking is making my head hurt more.  Nevertheless, please don't think that I didn't think your comment was amusing.

However, joking aside, the climate here is radically different, plus we live in a new wooden house.  Previously I have always lived at, or near, sea level.  The air here is sometimes extremely dry, which affects my sinuses.  Rapidly changing air pressure levels  might also be a factor. So there are numerous additional variables that now have to be considered.  For example, perhaps it's chemicals that were used to treat the wood used to build our house that's provoked the change from episodic to chronic.  A bit like sick house syndrome.  Or, perhaps it's due to innate changes and outside factors haven't played any part whatsoever.  For example, an MRI scan last year revealed a mass of some sort in my sphenoid sinus (same side as my chronic sinusitis and CH).  So who knows?

It's very difficult trying ascertain what's going on, or to carry out any kind of objective analysis when there is so much pain causing distraction.  Consequently, I think self-diagnosis is generally prone to errors and such things are best left to the medically qualified.  I get muddled and make a lot of mistakes when the pain becomes extremely intense, so I think the idea of experimenting with magic mushrooms, or such-like, would in my case inevitably lead to disaster.

Monty,
If you want to quote something out of one of my posts, please include the whole quote and also indicate that it was NOT something I said.  That way it is not taken out of context.


deltadarlin wrote on Feb 21^st, 2010 at 10:31am:

Links please, because so far, I haven't been able to find any thing like what you are referring to. START PRINTPAGEMultimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or END PRINTPAGE The below is a 15 year old study and it refers to *clusterlike* headache. START PRINTPAGEMultimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or END PRINTPAGE START PRINTPAGEMultimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or END PRINTPAGE ABSTRACT Clusterlike headaches secondary to structural disease have been described. Nevertheless, most of the reports antedate the International Headache Society classification and, indeed, only a few appear to fit its criteria for a diagnosis of cluster headache. We report here a case of sphenoidal sinus aspergilIoma that fully complies with the criteria for cluster headache. This kind of lesion has never been described previously as a cause of a clusterlike headache.

All this discussion does get me thinking. Juvenile Diabetes is caused by an infection in those with a hereditary marker in their DNA. Wonder if there's something like that for ch?

Ditto Guiseppi. Quite the contrary, unless coming out of a prednisone stint, when the immune system seems to go haywire for a while.