Thursday, March 17, 2011

Cluster headache


Image result for images of cluster headache

Cluster headache, nicknamed "suicide headache", is a neurological disease that involves, as its most prominent feature, an immense degree of pain.
Cluster headache is far less common than migraine headache or tension headache. Cluster headaches begin far more dramatically, however, and remain quite unique in their course over time. 
You can get 2 types of cluster headache:
  • Episodic: This type is more common. You may have 2 or 3 headaches a day for about 2 months and not experience another headache for a year. The pattern then will repeat itself.

  • Chronic: The chronic type behaves similarly but, unfortunately, you get no period of untreated sustained relief.

Symptoms

Common signs and symptoms:
A cluster headache strikes quickly, usually without warning. Typical signs and symptoms include:
  • Excruciating pain, generally located in or around the eye, but may radiate to other areas of the face, head, neck and shoulders
  • One-sided pain
  • Restlessness
  • Excessive tearing
  • Redness in the eye of the affected side
  • Stuffy or runny nasal passage in the nostril on the affected side of your face
  • Sweaty, pale skin (pallor) on the face
  • Swelling around the eye on the affected side of your face
  • Reduced pupil size
  • Drooping eyelid

Treatment

There's no cure for cluster headaches. The goal of treatment is to help decrease the severty of pain and shorten the headache period.

Initial treatment

Treatments to stop cluster headaches that have already started are called abortive headache treatments. They include abortive headache medicines and oxygen therapy. Abortive treatments relieve pain and reduce the severity of symptoms after a headache starts. Abortive headache treatments used most often to stop a cluster headache.

Best Treatment

High-flow oxygen inhalation therapy, in which you breathe oxygen through a face mask to relieve headache pain. Oxygen therapy is one of the best treatments to stop a cluster headache. Oxygen therapy relieves headache pain within 15 minutes in more than 7 out of 10 people who use it. It works best when started right when a cluster headache starts.1 But you need to repeat the treatment when the next headache begins. 



 

 

 

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