Hi all,

Been here before, know CH and all the regulars.

Before the inevitable barrage of "questions" appear here and elsewhere about Charlie Sheen and the media's mere mention of Mr Sheen and Cluster Headache in the same sentence, I thought I would take the opportunity to point out what Mr. Sheen's written statement says:

Charlie Sheen issued the following statement Tuesday. What follows is an extract from the complete, unedited letter:

Quote: "Roughly four years ago, I suddenly found myself in the throws of a seismic and debilitating

three-day cluster-migraine like headache

. I was emergently (emergency, urgently?) hospitalized with what I believed to be a brain tumor or perhaps some unknown pathology. I was partially correct. Following a battery of endless tests, that included a hideous spinal tap, it was sadly and shockingly revealed to me that I was, in fact, positive for HIV."

Mr. Sheen's personal letter goes on to explain his circumstances, which have very little to do with those of us here and the primary reason we are here; CH.

The statement can be found at almost every news outlet online. Sympathies to Mr. Sheen.
(As my account is new here, I cannot post links, but googling Yahoo News under "Charlie Sheen's Personal Letter on HIV Status" reveals a full transcript)

Whilst a lot of us can probably relate to the emergency treatment, and thoughts that we had a brain tumor on first presentation, CHers will know, this is par for the course in seeking correct differential diagnosis for headache conditions. It seems Mr. Sheen had similar thoughts as we CHers have had, at times. However, his (or his PCP's) choice of words to describe his clearly Secondary Headache syndrome are to say the least; poor.

We all know that CH attack does not last 3 days.
We all know that self diagnosis of brain tumors is not a good idea...
We know that CH is not Migraine.
We know that Mr Sheen has reported a Primary illness, second to which, were the reported headache symptoms.
We also know that CH is a Primary Headache.

Public awareness in the media can be a double-edged sword for all of us. It creates "Buzz" and not all of it, good.

When Daniel Radcliffe aka Harry Potter, told his story about genuine, diagnosed CH, a lot of newbies showed up. There was a lot of self-diagnosing going on and many thought their slightest brain niggle was now CH.

I welcome public awareness of CH, don't we all?
It was great to see the raise in awareness, but gee, we needed a crap filter on it when Harry Potter told his story...

So, when the first people with sore heads show up here, talking about Mr. Sheen and theirs or his  "Cluster Headaches", someone point them to Bob's excellent CH-LIKE thread! (I can't post a link, maybe Guiseppe can here)

Of course, the compassionate people on this site will be all over any genuine inquiries, that should go without mention.
We all know that a CHer is welcome and well looked after here.

Just saying there might be some fresh discussion on CH Mimics and Secondary Headache Syndromes on the cards...

Leave it with you, Bob.

Of course Charlie doesn't have ch , he has Adonis DNA  , duh!