We Struggle To Get More Than 1
Lack of sleep is a real thing. I cant get more than two hours at a time while in a cycle, says Ben Merrick, adding, which makes attacks worse, which makes it hard to sleep, which makes attacks worse
Cluster headaches typically come with nocturnal attacks that wake you from rapid eye movement or dream sleep. Its difficult for clusterheads to get more than 90-120 minutes of sleep at a time. Thats bad enough for one night, but imagine going weeks and months surviving on so little sleep.
Symptoms Of Cluster Headaches
Possible symptoms of cluster headaches include:
- Daily headaches often occurring at the same time of day for periods of 6 to 12 weeks
- Sudden onset
- Pain affecting one side of your head, possibly radiating to other areas of your face, head, neck and shoulders
- Pain of a sharp, penetrating or burning quality
- Severe pain intensity
- Paleness and sweating of your face
- Eyelid drooping
- Redness and swelling of the eye on the affected side
- Pupil constriction of the affected side
- Possibly some migraine headache-like symptoms
- Restlessness
Link Between Migraine And Parkinsons Found
Patients who suffer from 2 or more migraines per year may be at an increased risk of developing Parkinsons disease later in life, according to the findings of a new study from Taiwan.1
The study looked at a sizeable cohort of 41,019 subjects , who had had at least two migraines during 2001. The researchers then studied 41,019 randomly selected subjects without migraine. Patients were matched to the migraine cohort based on age, sex, pre-existing comorbidities, and socioeconomic status.
The researchers, from the National Taiwan University Hospital, noted that none of the subjects in the study had been diagnosed with PD or secondary Parkinsonism in the year prior to the study. However, at the 32-month follow-up, 148 patients with migraine were diagnosed with PD, compared to just 101 patients without migraine of 1.64 P=0.0004). The PD-free survival rate for the migraine group also was found to be significantly lower than that for the non-migraine group .1
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A Lawyer For Malpractice Cases
Besides ignorance, several factors can go into a diagnostic error for example, lack of communication between medical specialists and a lack of follow-through. You may have good grounds for a medical malpractice case if your doctors negligence caused the error. If your case succeeds, you may be reimbursed for the expense of all those unnecessary treatments and lost wages and pain and suffering.
A lawyer may be of great help since filing a claim is far from easy. You may especially want an attorney to negotiate a settlement for you with the other side.
Safety And Patient Selection For Dbs
Transient visual disturbances, diplopia, vertigo, nausea, euphoria, bradycardia, and appetite changes have been reported as the main side effects following DBS of the posterior hypothalamus. Serious events have also been documented such as intracerebral hemorrhage, hardware infection, transient loss of consciousness, and skin erosion or hardware malfunction . Lead fracture is another common complication. In a follow up study , the long-term incidence of lead fractures in patients who underwent DBS surgery was determined. This retrospective study was conducted on 208 patients who received 387 DBS electrodes, where 18 lead fractures were identified in 16 patients. Radiological screening has been suggested to determine the location and incidence of lead fracture in patients .
Patient selection with the aid of biomarkers, such as neuroimaging biomarkers , for example evidence of activation of hypothalamus , potential bio-based biomarkers, such as plasma levels of CGRP or certain miRNAs , or predictive biomarkers for migraine chronification, such as polymorphism of certain genes , would allow for proper patient selection and stratification of patients prior to the DBS trials in CM.
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Characteristics Of Cluster Headaches
Each day, patients can suffer multiple headache attacks, the duration of which can be anywhere from 15 minutes to three hours. Most of the time, patients experience pain on one side only and may suffer from drooping, tearing eyes and a runny nose at the same time. The pain has been compared to that of childbirth.
What Else Can I Do For Cluster Headaches
Some alternative therapies may provide relief from cluster headaches, including:
- Acupuncture: An ancient Chinese treatment, acupuncture uses small needles. Theyre inserted into your skin at various points to relieve pain.
- Physiotherapy: Treatment focuses on stretching, moving joints and massaging.
- Spinal manipulation: This chiropractic adjustment adjusts the alignment of your spine.
Your healthcare provider can recommend what might help for your situation. Ask about your options.
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What Causes Cluster Headaches
Cluster headaches have been connected to activity in the hypothalamus, a part of the brain that regulates various bodily processes, including hunger, thirst, and body temperature. There is some evidence to show that cluster headaches can also be hereditary.
Smoking, drinking alcohol, exposure to heat, and smelling certain strong smells, such as perfume, paint, or petrol, have also been known to trigger attacks of cluster migraines.
How Are Cluster Headaches Prevented
There is no cure for cluster headaches. You can’t do anything to prevent a cycle of cluster headaches from starting.
But as soon as a cycle starts, you can take medicine that may help prevent more headaches or reduce how many you have during a cycle. You take this medicine every day during the cycle.
Certain things may be more likely to cause a headache during a cycle. These are called triggers. Avoiding them may help prevent headaches. Triggers include:
A headache diary can give you and your doctor clues to help you manage your headaches. Write down when and how often the headaches happen, how severe they are, and what you think may be causing them. Share this with your doctor.
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Medical Hypothesis: Deep Brain Stimulation For Intractable Migraine
Parisa Gazerani 1,*
Department of Health Science and Technology, Faculty of Medicine, Aalborg University, Denmark
Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
* Correspondence: Parisa Gazerani
Received: October 26, 2020 | Accepted: December 29, 2020 | January 05, 2021
OBM Neurobiology 2021, Volume 5, Issue 1, doi:10.21926/obm.neurobiol.2101082
Recommended citation: Gazerani P, Cairns BE. Medical Hypothesis: Deep Brain Stimulation for Intractable Migraine. OBM Neurobiology2021 5:20 doi:10.21926/obm.neurobiol.2101082.
© 2021 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the conditions of the Creative Commons by Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is correctly cited.
Why Are They Called Cluster Headaches
Cluster headaches get their name from how they affect you. They come on in clusters, or groups, before temporarily going away for most people.
Each headache tends to last 30 to 45 minutes, though some are shorter and some longer. You may experience up to eight of these headaches within 24 hours. And this may happen for weeks or several months.
Then the clusters usually pause, for reasons that arent yet understood. The headaches go into remission for months or years before returning. Some people never get much of a break, though. They experience chronic cluster headaches. This happens to about one in five people who get cluster headaches.
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How Are Cluster Headaches Treated During A Cycle
When a headache starts, you can take medicine or breathe in oxygen from a machine to ease the pain or stop the headache. You use these treatments only when you feel a headache coming on. You don’t use them every day.
When a cluster headache begins:
If your treatment doesn’t work, ask your doctor if you can try something else. It may take time to find what works best for you.
Over-the-counter pain medicines, such as aspirin, acetaminophen, and ibuprofen, usually don’t work for cluster headaches.
Dealing with repeated cluster headaches can lead to stress and depression, which in turn can continue the headache cycle. Finding ways to cope with stress and improve depression may reduce the severity or frequency of your cluster headaches.
Research On Cluster Headaches And Cannabis
Only a few studies have looked at the use of cannabis for relieving cluster headaches, but their findings are promising.
Most notably, a 2014 study looked at 18 chronic cluster headaches sufferers who tried cannabis after failing to find sufficient relief from standard treatment. Most of them chose to smoke cannabis with an average daily dose of 1 gram. The researchers contacted the participants 2 months to 3 years after they started taking cannabis.
They found that 15 people experienced a 50% or greater reduction in headache severity, while 11 saw a 90%100% reduction. Also, nine people noted an 80-100% decrease in headache frequency. Additionally, 11 of the participants reported high satisfaction from using cannabis, highlighted by reduced usage of prescription medication and improvement of sleep and quality of life.
Meanwhile, a 2009 report discussed the case of a 19-year-old student whose cluster headaches ceased through the use of cannabis, after failing to find relief with standard medications. He saw benefits from smoking whole-plant cannabis and later on from taking dronabinol, a synthetic drug form of tetrahydrocannabinol .
Given that relaxation is one of the most common effects of cannabis use, it may also help with restlessness: another symptom of cluster headaches.
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Possible Cause Of Migraine
Scher believes that a neurological explanation could be behind her teams findings:
A dysfunction in the brain messenger dopamine is common to both Parkinsons and RLS, and has been hypothesized as a possible cause of migraine for many years. Symptoms of migraine such as excessive yawning, nausea and vomiting are thought to be related to dopamine receptor stimulation.
She says that the findings should lead to future investigations, and that more research should focus on exploring this possible link through genetic studies.
The findings suggest that there may be some common ground between Parkinsons and migraine the conditions of which are not well known and further research in this direction may be able to shed further light on these debilitating diseases.
Recently, Medical News Today reported on a phone app that could measure Parkinsons progression in its users.
Cluster Headaches Are As Common As Parkinsons Disease
Much of the research on cluster headaches has been funded or instigated by the patient community through Clusterbusters. Despite the documented severity and high suicide rate, theres a severe, ongoing lack of funding and research.
This is not a rare disease, says Eileen Brewer, President of Clusterbusters. Its as prevalent as Parkinsons disease. Cluster headache should not be riding on the coattails of any other diseases. It is a serious, debilitating, and deadly disease that deserves much-needed attention.
Ashley Hattle is a medical and fiction writer who has experienced episodic cluster headaches since 2007. She is the award-winning author of Cluster Headaches: A Guide to Surviving One of the Most Painful Conditions Known to Man and a traveling advocate for patients with the neurological disorder with Clusterbusters, Inc.
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What Are The Risk Factors For Cluster Headache
Several factors tend to increase the risk of developing cluster headache. Risk factors for cluster headache include:
-
Age 20 to 50 years
-
Family history of cluster headache
-
Male biological sex
-
Smoking
Alcohol use, especially red wine, can trigger headaches during an episode period. However, once the episode subsides and remission begins, alcohol usually is not a problem.
How Are Cluster Headaches Treated
Unfortunately, there is no cure for cluster headaches. But you do have treatment options that can make them a little less painful. Treatment options include:
- Abortive treatment to stop attacks: Often, a headache will stop before you have a chance to see a healthcare provider. But if you get there in time, there are several effective ways to stop a cluster headache. A healthcare provider may give you injected medications or a nasal spray. These include sumatriptan, dihydroergotamine and zolmitriptan. The provider may also give you oxygen through a mask.
- Medications to improve quality of life: Prescription medications can shorten a headache cycle. They can also make the headaches less severe. Calcium channel blockers, verapamil, lithium carbonate, divalproex sodium, melatonin or topiramate may help. There is a new preventive therapy that is a calcitonin gene-related peptide monoclonal antibody.
- Other options when needed: Surgeons have tried operations for cluster headaches. But they havent had much success preventing them. Researchers are now testing newer therapies to see if they can work. One option uses mild electrical stimulation on the neck. Another creates electrical stimulation by placing a medical device through the upper gums.
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How Cannabis Works On Cluster Headaches
The endocannabinoid system exists in all vertebrates and helps regulate crucial functions such as sleep, pain, and appetite. The human body produces its own cannabinoids, which modulate and activate its various functions, but as its name suggests, the endocannabinoid system can also be modulated and activated by cannabinoids found in the cannabis plant. Because the entire system was only discovered in the past 30 years, scientists still have much to learn about the myriad ways cannabis affects the human body.
Recent research has shown that a malfunctioning ECS may be involved in headache disorders. In fact, theres a good deal of evidence to support the theory of clinical endocannabinoid deficiency , which states that insufficient endocannabinoid levels may be one of the causes of several difficult-to-treat disorders, including migraines.
Since the triggers, treatment, and biological markers of migraines are similar to cluster headaches, a dysfunctional ECS may be involved with them too.
There is evidence that this system affects three key processes considered responsible for cluster headaches.
First and foremost, researchers believe that a part of the brain called the trigeminovascular system plays a central role in causing both migraine and cluster headaches.
Second, the malfunction of the key neurotransmitter serotonin is believed to be another process involved in both cluster and migraine headaches. Theres evidence that the ECS and serotonin dysfunction are related.
What Is The Difference Between Migraine And Cluster Headache
One of the main differences between migraine and cluster headache is that the person with cluster headache, unlike the person with migraine, becomes agitated during an attack and is unable to sit or lie down or find relief in sleeping. Where a migraine can last up to 72 hours, a cluster headache lasts less than 3 hours with the intensity of the pain peaking within a few minutes and reducing quickly at the end of the attack.
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Seven Things Cluster Headache Patients Wish Society Understood
By Ashley HattleInvisible diseases are among the most challenging conditions to live with because you not only struggle with pain and symptoms, but also judgment and misunderstanding from those you love the most. Cluster headache patients face this stigma for many reasons: We tend to isolate ourselves during attacks and episodic cycles, and talking about it can bring on post-traumatic stress disorder -like symptoms. Clusterheads live in fear of the next attack.While there are countless things we wish our friends, family, and medical professionals would understand, if the public knew the following things, our disease would be taken more seriously.
Doctors Are Continually Misdiagnosing Cluster Headaches
On Behalf of The Reardon Law Firm, P.C. | Jun 16, 2020 | Firm News |
In Connecticut and across the U.S., around one in 1,000 people suffer from cluster headache, a neurological condition that affects one side of the head and causes excruciating pain. Patients may experience a cluster headache attack several times a day, and each attack can last between 15 minutes and three hours.
It is by no means a rare disease it is, in fact, as common as Parkinsons disease and multiple sclerosis. Yet unlike these two well-known neurological disorders, cluster headache is prone to misdiagnosis and delayed diagnoses because so many doctors are simply unaware of its existence.
Patients may be incorrectly diagnosed with migraines, for example, or a chronic pain condition affecting the face called trigeminal neuralgia. Others may be told they have dental problems and undergo unnecessary treatments like teeth extraction.
Even painkillers, which are used to treat most types of headaches, do not work against cluster headaches. What are most effective are injections of a drug called triptans and oxygen inhalation treatments. Yet many doctors will not prescribe these. They may prescribe triptans, but in an oral form, which is ineffective.
Timely diagnoses and treatments are important because cluster headache patients are known to develop mental health conditions. Cluster headaches are sometimes called suicide headaches because of the suicidal thoughts that patients have during an attack.
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Oxygen Treatment Is Most Effective But Hardest To Get
High-flow oxygen is the best and safest option to abort cluster headaches, but this treatment is the one that patients struggle the most to obtain. Whether the delay is caused by doctors who have misguided notions of oxygen toxicity, or insurance companies and oxygen suppliers who dont understand its necessity, patients can spend years trying to get access to oxygen.
Many insurance suppliers wont cover the cost because the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services refuse to list 100 percent oxygen as first-line treatment. Then, when patients do get the tanks, they must fight for the proper regulator, buy their own non-rebreather mask, and learn a specific breathing technique.