tompa wrote on Feb 5^th, 2011 at 10:06pm:

  You don't have cluster headaches.

           Potter

Oh, and my mom wear earplugs.  I don't know if your doctor told you to try that or not.  She says it helps some.  She wears them during the whole flight.

Congrats Tompa, sounds like you do not have clusters!  If it is only on descent while flying then it is probably some sinus issues that can be common to flight.

I spent many years as a pilot and the pain you describe is exactly why we were not allowed to fly with a head cold in the military.  People still would occasionally and sometimes a blown out sinus would result.  I heard it was very painful and felt like getting stabbed by an ice pick.

So what I would do if I was flying while slightly clogged was drink tons of water to get my sinuses moist.  On descent I would hold my nose, close my mouth and gently blow out until I felt the ears popping.  **Don't do this hard or too quick as other problems can result**. 

Don't bother doing that while climbing out as the pressure works the other way and the hold the nose trick doesn't work. 

Commercial airliners only take the cabin altitude up to 5,000-7,000 ft or so.  They descend gently but can still cause some problems for people with sensitive sinuses as you know.  Quite different than being in a dive bombing pattern without much pressurization.

Also, since I am not a Dr. and don't know your specific sinus issue, the hold the nose and blow technique may be too much for your sinuses, so you may want to consult a professional (otherwise known as don't blame me if it doesn't work right).  Works great for my sinuses but everyone is different.

--The Shaggy

I've always called them 'landing headaches' and yes, they hurt like hell. A big one is just like a CH and can be anything up to K7.53 but thankfully they last only a few minutes.

Oddly, I've never had one while sky-diving.

Batch wrote on Feb 6^th, 2011 at 10:22am:


Air New Zealand always at the start of the descent pass out boiled sweets just for this reason, which I've been enjoying on the 7 flights I've done in the last 4 weeks.

I've had zero trouble with CHs whilst flying although I did get one soon after landing last Friday which was about my usual time for getting them so almost certainly nothing to do with flying.

I don't know.  According to the classical diagnosis schemes, you're not suffering from CH.

These schemes put much weight on the attack patterns and effects like red eye and running nose.

For me personally it is the pain that is the critical. It's taste and smell, so to speak.  I have in fact experienced "single attack cycles" several times.  Who dare tell me that those attacks were not CH because hey, they gotta come in clusters?

According to the diagnosis schemes those attacks must have been something else. Single lone wolf attacks doesn't go well with the name. Of course they were not something else. The CH pain is very different from any other headache I've encountered. It just can't be confused with anything else. Any CH sufferer will recognize a CH attack even if it's just 0,5% of its full strength. Naming it A shadow, but still CH. The rest of the world however, GPs and MDs included, may very well confuse CH with something else,  especially if it doesn't fit perfectly to their kind of funny diagnosis schemes.

As CH is poorly understood scientifically and it's causes still a mystery, I can't go binary and respond yes/no to your question. If its is CH it is surely atypical. A. But that is not unheard of.  In the year 2000, a Norwegian neurologist, P Gulbrandsen, published an article in Neurology on a 22 years old male having all the outside symptoms of CH 1-3 times daily, but no pain. Later he also had the pain. But actually, his patient suffered from painless CH - forcibly challenging the schematic pathophysiology of CH.

CH may very well prove to be a family of conditions. In fact it is likely. Even among the CH diagnosed, the experience vary very much, and treatments that are successful for some, have no effect on others.

The story of CH is still in the making.

Going from London to Seattle late March a year ago, I had a similar experience.  Shortly after departing the pain occured and I had no abortive available.
That was the first time I was flying in a cycle. A humbling experience. If pressure triggerd it? I don't know. But I was pain free the entire week on US soil, and also on the plane home. A few days in Norway, and it returned with anger and misery until I read about D3 etc in this brilliant forum and got rid of it in a matter of days.