The head pain of a CH's and Migraines are completely different.  It is possible to have both types of headaches, but they are so vastly different.  Most doctors have no clue about CH's, let alone how to treat them so they often pass them off with a misdiagnosis of Migraine, Tension, Sinus, Allergy, etc.

Take a good look at the Cluster Quiz and see which category you fall into, perhaps more than one. 

There are plenty of discussions on this board from our "large Army" of CH sufferers, read as much as you can absorb and then read some more...unfortunately, chances are YOU will be responsible for educating your neurologist/headache specialist about your disease.

Shaggy concurs with the above comments.  I get both migraines and clusters, although only get 1 or 2 migraines a year and if I can catch them right at the start, take a couple aspirin and lay down for a few hours they kind of fizzle out. 

The symptoms are quite different and I have no doubt which is which. 

The reason not to join forces I think is that everyone thinks we get migraines now.  If we joined with the migrainers people would really confuse the 2.  I bet they are totally different animals in a medical sense (just my guess) because they are different for me.  Interesting question though Hickory.

--Shaggy

Lasvegas, I'd like to know how they are so different.

Shaggy, You say you get both. How are they different?

Bob, “Even though frequency and duration of attacks clearly differentiate CH from migraine, the presence of migrainous symptoms in CH might cause misdiagnoses in patients with infrequent or long-lasting attacks.” So what you are showing me is that they are very similar besides there frequency and duration?

Maybe we should be looking at all this head pain as different stages of development. Could it be that people go from headaches to migraines to episodic clusters to chronic clusters? Not saying they all progress that far. Maybe they're different levels of the same thing.

I ask all of you these questions because I feel the people on this site are more familiar with the beast than most doctors.

Hickory,
I have migraines and my husband has clusters and I can promise you there are distinct differences between the two.  He's also been episodic from the beginnin.   The most common denominator is that they are both headaches.  There are also different types of migraines.

My differentiator is "Can you be still?"
If you can lie down in a dark room and be still it is a migraine. If you HAVE to pace, walk, run, scream, bang your head into hard objects it is a cluster.

Hi Hickory.  Sorry to be flippant about the differences.  Mine really are distinct and it sounds like some people have more gray areas around the 2 headache types.  I think initially I said I had migraines because it hurt a lot and that was the only headache I had ever heard of that hurt a lot.  By the time your head hurts for long enough to scare you, we go to a doctor and it is a mysterious pain and then our cycle ends, we feel better and assume it was allergies or we got a new prescription in our eye glasses and away we go, everything back to normal.  2 years later same thing, back to the eye or allergy doctor blah blah blah and 6 years later we finally realize it is none of these and maybe not even migraines and then our cycle starts and ends again without seeing the right doctor and we are still unsure.  That was more or less my episodic history.

Now on to your migraine differentiation question.  I feel I get a classic version of both migraine and CH.  With a migraine I usually have a very small headache, barely enough to notice.  10-30 minutes later I get some visual flashes,spots, floaty things dancing around in my vision.  At that point I stop what I am doing, take some aspirin and lay down in a dark room for a nap.  If I do that my migraine will dissipate and be very subtle for a day or so. 

If I miss the aspirin, lay down trick the migraine will build to slurred speach, major headache, nausea, sometimes vomiting and sometimes tingling limbs.  I don't miss much because it hurts too bad.  After experience with both headaches, it really is a different pain for me.  But you have to have enough of both of them to feel it.  I get 1 or 2 a year of these and I can't tie them to a specific cause.

My cluster cycle starts with a classic week or 2 of shadows at which time I now abort the cycle via techniques on the clusterbusters website.  If I miss it each of my CH attacks start in the morning around 10am with excessive yawning usually before a hint of the pain, excessive heating of my body causing sweating, droopy eye, clogged sinuses (always left side), intense pain, sensitive top of my head (somewhere, search for the sweet spot and apply pressure to help with pain), rarely nausea but depends what I just ate, and always a trip to the men's room for a large bowl movement (you asked ), and it's the best one of the day but I am usually kipping pretty big by then, hunched over with my head in my hands.  No sleep possible.  Last for 30-60 minutes, only 1 per day usually, cycle lasts a few months.

Tried allergy medicine and pain relievers on the CH, no work, and once I figured out that the excedrin worked but the other pain relievers didn't, I started taking caffeine pills instead, same result if caught early enough.

Anywho, long winded, sorry everyone but it took me 20 years to figure this out and now I am on to new medicine and figuring that out too.  With great success I might add.

Good luck Hickory, keep at it.   

--Shaggy

NovellRed wrote on Mar 14^th, 2010 at 12:41pm:
Bingo!
You NAILED that one. 

There is no such thing as rest or laying down with a cluster.

Count me as another who gets both.  I had migraines before ch and when I had my first ch I never for a second confused it with having a migraine.  The pain with ch is a different animal all together.  I thought I had a serious infection in my sinus or jaw.  After many rounds of antibiotics with no relief, I thought I may have a brain tumor or I had an aneurysm that was going to burst and kill me.

The Dr. who first diagnosed me said "Migraine".  I was so fed up with not being understood I googled "Migraine" and after many clicks ended up here home.  When I went back to that Dr and mentioned ch, he said yes, same thing.   Nope....not the same thing, but the same in many Dr's eyes and Dx.

Migraines hurt like hell and I consider a migraine a headache.  I can lay down and not move (so I don't puke), and go to sleep praying that it will be gone when I wake up.

CH is more like an attack with a hot poker to the eye, sinus, ear and jaw (one side).  I have never been able to stay still during a bad ch attack.  They are especially terrifying when you have no clue what is happening to you. 

One other big difference between the two is the duration.  I have had bad migraines at the same pain level for days with no relief.  They are horrible and I am in no way diminishing that pain.  An average ch last 30 miutes to 3 hours (give or take).  A ch (not shadow) that lasted for days would not be survivable.  I do not know how anyone would be able to take that kind of pain for days.  I would need to be put in a coma.

Bob Johnson wrote on Mar 29^th, 2010 at 2:59pm:
Bob, I see what you're saying because I actually do meditate in darkness (my bedroom actually) with no noise other than my screaming kids downstairs, however my body is not laying there comfortably.  I can't lay at all actually, I just sit still.  I'm not a banger.  I gently move my head into positions to comfort my attack.  I have never paced either.  I guess my point was I cannot sit still eventhough I can for a couple minutes at a time.  I don't scream or moan either, just take deep breathes.  I do remember reading that thread about posture in the past.  I've seen my mom with migraines growing up and she was in bed laying down with an ice pack on her head for long periods of time.  Some here may be able to do that, but not me.  Sitting upright in meditation works best for me.
Luckily my attacks only last 2 hours tops.  I have O2 in the arsenal now, so hopefully the attacks will be reduced next cycle with my latest success of Clusterbusting.

I always find it a very odd and surreal sensation when I get any sort of tension or "normal person" headache as I call them.