Signs and Symptoms
Cluster headaches are excruciating unilateral headaches of extreme intensity. The duration of the common attack ranges from as short as 15 minutes to three hours or more. The onset of an attack is rapid, and most often without the preliminary signs that are characteristic of a migraine. However, some sufferers report preliminary sensations of pain in the general area of attack, often referred to as "shadows", that may warn them an attack is lurking or imminent. Though the headaches are almost exclusively unilateral, there are some documented as cases of "side-shifting" between cluster periods, or, even rarer, simultaneously (within the same cluster period) bilateral headache. Trigeminal neuralgia can also bring on headaches with similar qualities. However, with trigeminal neuralgia the pain is mostly located around the facial area and is described as being like stabbing electric shocks, burning, pressing, crushing, exploding or shooting pain that becomes intractable.
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