Cluster Headache More Likely to Be Chronic in Women, Study Finds
Compared with other types of headache, cluster headache is rare. Defined by short but extremely painful episodes that can occur for many days or even weeks in a row, the condition can be excruciating. In fact, the pain can be so unbearable that these attacks have been given the name “suicide headaches.”“Historically, about half the patients who had them would kill themselves [because] the pain was so bad,” says Merle Diamond, MD, the managing director of the Diamond Headache Clinic and the director of the Diamond Inpatient Headache Unit at Saint Joseph Hospital in Chicago. “It’s a knife-searing pain. People have described it as having a hot poker through their eye or somebody stabbing them through their skull.”Although this debilitating condition has been more frequently reported among men, a new…