Does anyone have any history of head trauma, severe or otherwise?  I have been in 3 serious car accidents in my life, all of which produced concussions.  When I think back about the onset of my health issues, they seem to coincide with these accidents.  After the first one, I started with the migraines and after the third is when the migraines got worse and shortly after, I was diagnosed with Meniere's Disease and then CHs.  After reading all of the info on head trauma in athletes, I'm convinced that these neurological issues don't happen randomly and they'll only get worse as time goes by.  Has anyone thought the same thing?

Up until a couple of weeks ago, I would have said the correlation between CHs and head/neck trauma was circumstantial or coincidental at best, but then I was rear ended. Pretty hard, too. Since then, even though I am chronic and get hit nearly every day, I was in a low cycle of chronic hits. Now, I am in a high cycle and get hit 4-6 times a day. With increased intensity. Could be I was heading that way anyway, but then again, the timing is suspect. How does it change things? Not much, except I am more aggressive in addressing the cycle (taking a pred taper now) and spending more time on O2. I'd like it to settle back down, that would be great. Blessings. lance

Bob Johnson wrote on Dec 19^th, 2011 at 10:51am:


Bureaucratic bullshit!  There IS a direct correlation between head trauma and Cluster Headaches.

We've got enough testimony on this short thread to prove it's not very rare and that the literature should be revised to include more than just one such case.

Pardon me, I used the incorrect word....Cluster Headaches were CAUSED by MY head traumas and appears to be a consensus of others on this short thread also.

Now we're getting somewhere, great question Joe

i believe that if it were not for head injuries (that i would not have this condition)...with that being said,i recall having a conversation with dr.kudrow appr 10 years ago in this regards (all he could tell me that it was possible) i honestly don't think we will ever know of why we have this fu..ed up condition,but we have it and we also have this great site, so we will never be alone again...we are all in the same boat,so lets keep on rowing...btw, in 2007,i had another head injury (about a month later) i went from chronic to episodic...i am 100% convinced that head trauma was in my case...btw,what the f..k was that dr. talking "about our lifestyles"  ???

Quote:

Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

One day I took a dump and the next day my CH started.  CH must be related to visiting the can.

Bob P wrote on Dec 20^th, 2011 at 6:50am:


Lenny, the lifestyle comment relates to a thread I started a couple weeks ago about my theory of a Dopamine imbalance.

Bob P, that sarcastic analogy was stupid and not appreciated from those of us whose CH's were caused by head trauma.

Bob P wrote on Dec 20^th, 2011 at 6:50am:

LasVegas wrote on Dec 20^th, 2011 at 8:01am:

CH caused by head trauma seems to be the exception, not the rule. Lighten up, dude. It's Christmas.

Lance has the right idea--until we touch the reality of $.
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Lack of Access to Specialty Care, Insufficient Research Funds Plague Headache


July 10, 2008 (Boston, Massachusetts) — Two new studies suggest that US patients with headache lack access to specialty care and that the field is suffering from a serious shortage of research funding.

In the first study, investigators developed a national and state-by-state report card of access to headache care in the United States and found that even those states ranked as having the best access were frequently lacking.

"By any standard, specialized care is widely unavailable across the United States, and even the highest ranking states are not doing very well," said principal investigator Elizabeth Loder, MD, from the department of neurology at Brigham & Women's Hospital, in Boston, Massachusetts.

In the second study, investigators at Washington University School of Medicine, in St. Louis, Missouri, examined the headache research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) over the past 20 years.

Among other findings, the study revealed the total NIH annual budget for headache research is approximately $13 million. However, relative to the burden of disease and compared with other chronic conditions, including epilepsy, asthma, and diabetes, the researchers concluded NIH-funded headache research falls far short of the mark.

"We were able to identify only 111 research projects over a 20-year period funded by the NIH. If we compare the funding of headache to other chronic diseases, accounting for multiple different burdens of illness, it suggests that NIH funding of headache research should be greater than $100 million annually," said study investigator Todd Schwedt, MD.

Both studies were presented here at the recently held 50th Annual Meeting of the American Headache Society (AHS).

Expert Advisory Group

To identify and highlight deficiencies in access to specialty headache services, Dr. Loder brought together an advisory group of headache experts and consumers to develop indicator measures and benchmarks of access to care.

"We chose availability of care as a measure of quality, because we reasoned that it doesn't really matter how good care is if people can't access it," said Dr. Loder.

The advisory group looked at 3 major indicators of access to care. These were:

Supply — Measured by the number of AHS member headache specialists per million residents and the number of specialty headache inpatient programs per state.
Availability — Measured by the longest distance a resident would have to travel to see an in-state headache specialist and average waiting times for evaluation with an in-state headache specialist on a nonurgent basis.
Affordability — Measured by the number of triptan tablets per month covered by a state Medicaid program and the percentage of state residents with health insurance.
Using the best available data, a numerical score was calculated for each state and measured against the panel's benchmarks. A score of 100 was considered satisfactory; between 75 and 99 was rated as satisfactory minus; between 55 and 74 was unsatisfactory; and a score of less than 55 was a failing grade.

For supply, the top-ranking state was New Hampshire. Wyoming and Idaho ranked poorest in this area, with no AHS member headache specialists in the state. Multidisciplinary, long-stay dedicated inpatient headache treatment programs were available only in Illinois and Michigan.

==============Balance of article deleted=========
[Medscape, 7/10/08]

How much trauma does it take to be considered trauma?  I'd bet almost everyone in the world would say they've cracked their head a number of times in thier life.  How hard does that hit have to be?  How does that hit equate to the extra bundle of nerve fibers on our hypothalamus?

Why an abnormal percentage of blue/hazel eyed CHers?  ( yes this is true.  I looked at the % of blue/hazel in the general population and the % in CHers).

Why an abnormal % of smokers?

Why more men than women?

Why, why, why?

My comment was an example of correlation vs causation, and yes, it was sarchastic.  Believe me, after being a clusterhead for 41 years, I know that we all want to know why.  Grabbing at staws and making them absolutes won't get us there though.  There's a person on the "Med" board who is sure her attacks are caused by lead from a scratched coffee cup.  Is she right?

Merry Christmas.
lyg