Cluster headache is a condition that involves, as its most prominent feature, an immense degree of pain that is almost always on only one side of the head. Some doctors and scientists have described the pain resulting from cluster headaches as the most intense pain a human can endure - worse than burns, broken bones or child birth.
Dr. Peter Goadsby, Professor of Clinical Neurology at University College London (now at University of California, San Francisco), a leading researcher on the condition has commented:
"Cluster headache is probably the worst pain that humans experience. I know that’s quite a strong remark to make, but if you ask a cluster headache patient if they’ve had a worse experience, they’ll universally say they haven't. Women with cluster headache will tell you that an attack is worse than giving birth. So you can imagine that these people give birth without anesthetic times a day. Many cluster headache sufferers have committed suicide, leading to the nickname "suicide headaches" for cluster headaches. Cluster headaches often occur periodically: spontaneous remissions interrupt active periods of pain, though there are about 20% of suffers whose cluster headaches never remit. The cause of the condition is currently unknown. It affects approximately 0.1% of the population, and men are more commonly affected than women."
Read more about Cluster Headache: Signs and Symptoms, Pathophysiology, Diagnosis, Prevention, Management, Epidemiology, History
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