Cluster Headaches Are The Most Painful You Will Ever Experience

A cluster headache has got to be one of the most painful conditions known to man and their one and only saving grace is that they are fortunately fairly rare. For instance, while about one person in ten of the population suffers from migraine headaches, only about one person in three hundred will ever experience cluster headaches. More people are searching for migraine prevention and cure.

Cluster headaches often appear as what many sufferers describe as a hot and stabbing pain behind only one eye or in the region of the temple. Their key characteristic however is that they follow a timetable and appear at the same time every day often for several days, weeks or months at a time. They also have a tendency to appear without warning, unlike migraine headaches which are often preceded by several warning signs.

Nobody is exactly certain what causes these extremely painful headaches though research tends to favor the theory that they are the result of abnormalities in the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is a small gland that plays an important part in regulating your body's internal clock and this might explain why headaches appear at about the same time each day.

Yet another feature of these headaches that distinguishes them from migraines is that are seen far more in men than in women. When it comes to migraines approximately three times as many women as men are afflicted but, with cluster headaches, studies indicate that they are up to eight times more prevalent in men.

Traditional treatments for ordinary headaches are virtually always useless for cluster headaches and this is one class of headache for which you need to seek the professional advice of your doctor.

One commonly used treatment is that of inhaling pure oxygen for several minutes once the headache begins. This particular form of treatment will not work for everyone but normally works extremely well for those people who do find it is helpful. It will not however prevent a headache and only works in treating a headache once it has begun.

Yet another extremely effective treatment is the use of a new class of drugs called triptans which are at present being used for the treatment of migraine symptoms. These drugs do however have to be taken in a fast acting form to be effective and this generally means taking them in the form of a nasal spray. In many cases however cluster headaches can cause inflammation of the nasal passages making this form of treatment difficult. Here, triptans can occasionally be given by injection.

At present there are no terribly effective preventative treatments available for migraine medication although some sufferers do find that calcium channel blockers work fairly well. Additionally, in very severe cases surgery can be considered as a last resort treatment and several neurological procedures are available including procedures that block certain nerves and that remove a section of the brain.