A cluster headache, unlike migraines which can have a warning aura, will start with no warning.
It may reach its peak intensity within 2-15 minutes.
It may only last a few minutes, but it often lasts longer, averaging around 45 minutes.
The pain of a cluster headache is agonizing, which is they they are nicknamed "suicide headaches.
" The pain is centered in or around one eye, accompanied by tearing in the eye, perhaps droopy or puffy eyelid, pain in the sinuses around that side, and that side of your nose running (rhinorrhea).
While people with migraines usually need to lie down in a dark quiet room, sufferers from cluster headaches prefer to stay up -- pacing, rocking, or even banging their head.
The headache is called a cluster headache because they will occur in clusters, up to several times in a 24-hour period.
They will often occur at the same time each day or night like an alarm clock, or the same time of the year.
These clusters of headaches come in cycles which usually last from 1-2 months at a time on average, and then the sufferer can be pain-free for the rest of the year.
One researcher on these kinds of headaches, Dr.
Peter Goadsby, Professor of Clinical Neurology at University College London, was quoted as saying that "Cluster headache is probably the worst pain that humans experience.
" His research using scans of patients' brains has shown that people with these headaches have an enlargement of the posterior part of the hypothalamus, which is a part of the brain that regulates, as part of its function, the body's circadian rhythm, which would help explain why cluster headaches occur with such chronicity.
His research has found that cluster headaches are not a vascular problem, but a difference in the structure of the brain of people who get these headaches, which is helping to lead to better research for what can be done to help these headache sufferers.
It may reach its peak intensity within 2-15 minutes.
It may only last a few minutes, but it often lasts longer, averaging around 45 minutes.
The pain of a cluster headache is agonizing, which is they they are nicknamed "suicide headaches.
" The pain is centered in or around one eye, accompanied by tearing in the eye, perhaps droopy or puffy eyelid, pain in the sinuses around that side, and that side of your nose running (rhinorrhea).
While people with migraines usually need to lie down in a dark quiet room, sufferers from cluster headaches prefer to stay up -- pacing, rocking, or even banging their head.
The headache is called a cluster headache because they will occur in clusters, up to several times in a 24-hour period.
They will often occur at the same time each day or night like an alarm clock, or the same time of the year.
These clusters of headaches come in cycles which usually last from 1-2 months at a time on average, and then the sufferer can be pain-free for the rest of the year.
One researcher on these kinds of headaches, Dr.
Peter Goadsby, Professor of Clinical Neurology at University College London, was quoted as saying that "Cluster headache is probably the worst pain that humans experience.
" His research using scans of patients' brains has shown that people with these headaches have an enlargement of the posterior part of the hypothalamus, which is a part of the brain that regulates, as part of its function, the body's circadian rhythm, which would help explain why cluster headaches occur with such chronicity.
His research has found that cluster headaches are not a vascular problem, but a difference in the structure of the brain of people who get these headaches, which is helping to lead to better research for what can be done to help these headache sufferers.