Cluster Headaches Can Make Life Unbearable

June 13, 2001 -- What can cause a grown man to groan out loud, rock back and forth on the floor, dig his hands into the carpet, cradle his head or crawl on his knees?

The answer is a cluster headache, rare, intensive kind of pain that affects about 1 million Americans — 90 percent of them male — according to the National Headache Foundation.

The headaches are so named because they occur in "groups" or clusters, several times a day for several weeks before they subside. Months later, they start all over again.

Taking two aspirin and waiting will not help, says ABCNEWS Medical Correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman.

The prevailing explanation for cluster and migraine headaches is that dilation of blood vessels causes the pain. Doctors use oxygen to treat the condition, because it constricts brain blood vessels; researchers are looking at the role of the hypothalamus in the brain.

Like a 'Hot Poker in Your Eye'

Those who suffer from cluster headaches say there's nothing mild about them.

"It feels like you have a hot poker stuck in your eye," says Pat Kelly, a cluster headache sufferer.

"I've had broken bones and burns and I've had nothing compared to it," said Dan Skopek, who got his first cluster headache 10 years ago at age 21.

Though doctors don't know why, men are affected more often than women. Smoking and drinking are notorious headache triggers.

Most cluster headaches have a seasonal rhythm, occurring most often in the fall or the spring.

But up to 20 percent of sufferers have chronic cluster headaches, every day.

"Patients will often cry or scream or pace or pound their heads or their fists against the wall," says Dr. Joel Saper, a neurologist from the Michigan Head-Pain and Neurological Institute. "It's a devastating experience, a torturing experience."

'Suicide Headaches'

Patients and doctors call them suicide headaches.

Dr. Seymour Diamond, of the Diamond Headache Clinic in Chicago, says he has seen cases go to extremes: "The only suicides I've ever seen in any headache patients have been men who have had clusters."

Cluster headache sufferers feel compelled to move around, bang their heads and cry out. Migraine headache patients typically seek a quiet dark room to lie down in. An individual cluster headache lasts 45 minutes to two hours, while migraines can go on for several days.

"You beat your head on the wall, on the floor, because that feels better than the headache," Skopek says. "If the doctors told me that it was my arm that was causing the headaches and I had to have it amputated I would have done it in a second."

After being misdiagnosed and overmedicated, Skopek says he was ready to bid his wife and children goodbye and commit suicide.

Pass the Oxygen