Posted by Todd (216.199.4.101) on May 26, 2000 at 18:42:03:
In Reply to: female clusterhead posted by Mary on May 26, 2000 at 18:13:05:
My 3 brothers DON'T have them. Neither do my 7 male and 5 female first cousins. In fact, to the best of my family's knowledge, I'm the first in the tree to ever have them.
Using this first-generation population results in the conclusion that 9% of males and 0% of females suffer from CH. Both are obviously flawed numbers.
The most recent marketing surveys indicate that 50% of the people who spend time on the web are female. Women tend to spend more time surfing than men do, and tend also to visit sites like chmb more often. The realization that women are more socially outgoing than men is hardly new to sociologists.
Much of the literature still lists ch as overwhelmingly a male disorder. I believe much of this has to do with doctors having the mindset that women have migraines and men have clusters.
My personal, totally un-scientific analysis concludes that 20% is a reasonably good number for the percentage of female sufferers.
I think we will probably see a fairly dramatic increase in females being diagnosed with CH as it becomes the newest "fashionable" disorder for use when doc's can't figure out what is wrong. I also believe many will be mis-diagnosed as a result of this.
Most importantly, this disorder CANNOT become known as a 'male' or 'female' problem. We must also understand whether and why one gender suffers more than the other, if in fact this is true. Males and females are NOT equal, biologically. Knowing that one gender or the other is more likely to suffer ch provides important research avenues, regarding primarily hormones, as most of the sociological differences (work load, stress, alcohol, tobacco, etc) have become equalized between the genders.
Let's not fall into the gender argument. If you suffer, you suffer. My personal contact with sufferers of both genders has convinced me that neither one 'tolerates' pain, at least the pain of CH, "better" than the other. We all hurt like hell and need help with this.
KTSSU,
T