Prognosis
The pain of cluster headaches can be intolerable, and, in fact, a higher-than-average rate of suicide has been reported in men with these headaches. Eventually, the attacks cease, but experts cannot predict when or how they will end.
Effects on Mental and Emotional Functioning
People with episodic cluster headaches tend to have low sexual appetites and impaired verbal memory and are more likely to suffer from anxiety. According to one study, for example, nearly a quarter of patients with cluster headaches met the criteria for having anxiety disorders. Furthermore, the anxiety disorders occurred more frequently within the year before the onset of their cluster headaches. (None of these patients had depression or abused alcohol or drugs.) Some studies suggest that the biologic abnormalities in the hypothalamus of the brain that are associated with episodic cluster headaches may also contribute to these emotional and mental difficulties. A 2000 study suggested that the use of antidepressants that regulate serotonin and sleep may reverse mental impairment as well as improve well being.
A Description of a Cluster Headache Attack
"The pain was tearing, gnawing, boring, throbbing. The eye became so sensitive that it could not support the light, it became inflamed, spasmodically contracted and tearing, the temporal vessel [blood vessel in the temples] pulsated uncommonly strongly. In no position of the body did I find rest, and the pain became so insupportable that I rolled on the floor, afraid at any moment of getting convulsions. I had already resolved to open a vein in the afternoon when the noon bell tolled twelve o'clock and with this tolling sound there was momentaneous relief."
By John Muller, a German physician (written in the early 1800s)
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