[Tocsin]

The following observation over on
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brought this subject back to mind:

Originally Posted by darniem To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I suffer from Cluster Headaches, AKA "suicide headaches" because the pain is so unbearable many sufferers intentionally kill themselves to stop the pain or accidentally OD on pain killers (which don't work) to stop it. I nearly killed myself in college because the pain was so intense I could hardly stand it. It's seriously that bad. The pain has been noted as worse than childbirth by childbearing women, and the best description I have is that it is similar to a brain freeze but more painful...now imagine having a brain freeze, not for 20 seconds or less, but for upwards of 3 hours and several times a day per headache. I had one for 10 hours last year. Fun times. I wouldn't wish these damn things on Hitler.

I wanted to add this to the old
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thread, but that thread is so old that it has been locked.

I myself has recently suffered from an intense serious of headaches, far worse than anything I endured in my twenties, with nightly severe headaches including repeated tremors, spasms, and vomiting on several occassions. It became so severe I eventually went in to an emergency room, wondering if it might not be a stroke or heart attack.

I'm still in the process of diagnosis, but I am sure myself that it is related (in my case) to at least a mild case of adult onset diabetes. I have reduced my food and soda consumption at night, before bed, and the headaches have dropped off completely. I'm pretty sure cutting off the use of acetaminophen also helped.

So, to the point, how many people have experienced this, and what has or hasn't worked for you in dealing with this?

[Kisai]

I don't have it. I do have a friend who is one of the nicest people in the world who does have it. He told me that in order to have a worse headache, you have to be dying of brain trauma.

I think SelfMadeBum also has these headaches... or I could be mistaken.

[Tocsin]

	Originally Posted by Kisai To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I don't have it. I do have a friend who is one of the nicest people in the world who does have it. He told me that in order to have a worse headache, you have to be dying of brain trauma.

It is certianly "a bitch," as they say.

My recent series of headaches gave me a new standard for what a "ten" on the scale of pain is.

Here is a
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from the original thread, and a few excerpts...

Cluster headaches are excruciating unilateral headaches[2] of extreme intensity.[3] The duration of the common attack ranges from as short as 15 minutes to three hours or more. The onset of an attack is rapid, and most often without the preliminary signs that are characteristic of a migraine. However, some sufferers report preliminary sensations of pain in the general area of attack, often referred to as "shadows", that may warn them an attack is lurking or imminent. Though the headaches are almost exclusively unilateral, there are some documented as cases of "side-shifting" between cluster periods, or, even rarer, simultaneously (within the same cluster period) bilateral headache.[4] Trigeminal neuralgia can also bring on headaches with similar qualities. However, with trigeminal neuralgia the pain is mostly located around the facial area and is described as being like stabbing electric shocks, burning, pressing, crushing, exploding or shooting pain that becomes intractable. The pain of cluster headaches is remarkably greater than in other headache conditions, including severe migraines; experts have suggested that it may be the most painful condition known to medicaurological Problem |journal=Practical Neurology |year=2001 |month=October |volume=1 |pages=42–9 |doi=10.1046/j.1474-7766.2001.00505.x |url=http://pn.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/1/1/42 |format=PDF |issue=1}}</ref> Dr. Peter Goadsby, Professor of Clinical Neurology at University College London (now University of California, San Francisco), a leading researcher on the condition has commented: "Cluster headache is probably the worst pain that humans experience. I know that’s quite a strong remark to make, but if you ask a cluster headache patient if they’ve had a worse experience, they’ll universally say they haven't. Women with cluster headache will tell you that an attack is worse than giving birth. So you can imagine that these people give birth without anesthetic once or twice a day, for six, eight, or ten weeks at a time, and then have a break. It's just awful." *** "Our patients were disabled by the disorder and suffered from bouts of pain from two to twenty times a week. They had found no relief from the usual methods of treatment. Their pain was so severe that several of them had to be constantly watched for fear of suicide. Most of them were willing to submit to any operation which might bring relief."