Cluster Headache
Cluster Headaches are a series of relatively short but extremely painful headaches every day for weeks or months at a time.
This is migraine variant, 10-50 times less common than migraine. There is severe unilateral periorbital pain, unilateral lacrimation and nasal congestion.
Infrequently, pain may extend into the ear, neck, or shoulder. Although watering of the eye is frequently identified, some patients may only experience some redness of the conjunctiva.
Eyelid drooping or swelling and a runny nose (rhinorrhea) are often associated with the pain of a cluster headache.
The pain is almost always one-sided, and it stays on the same side during a period.
During a cluster period:
- Headaches usually occur every day, sometimes several times a day.
- A cluster headache lasts a short time — usually 30 to 90 minutes, sometimes maybe last for only 15 minutes or as long as 3 hours and then disappears ,thus single attack can last from 15 minutes to three hours.
- The attacks often occur at the same time each day.
- Most attacks occur at night, usually one to two hours after you go to bed
- The syndrome may occur repeatedly for number of weeks, followed by respite for number of months before another cluster occur.
