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New CH.com Forum › Cluster Headache Help and Support › Cluster Headache Specific › Left side headaches - medication overuse?

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Left side headaches - medication overuse? (Read 1242 times)

Mike NZ

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Left side headaches - medication overuse?
Nov 15^th, 2017 at 2:37am

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Quote:

Pain on the left side of the head could be a sign of overusing some medications, infections or bad lifestyle habits, leading health website Heathline.com has claimed.

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This has a lot of detail about headaches which affect the left hand side. However it doesn't mention any references to research that links left hand side headaches to certain headache types, especially medication overuse.

I've done a search on PubMed, but didn't find anything. Google doesn't find anything too, other than the articles listed above plus stuff that isn't related to left side specific headaches.

Is anyone aware of any research linking the headache side to anything?

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Bally

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Re: Left side headaches - medication overuse?
Reply #1 - Dec 6^th, 2017 at 12:57pm

I work at a university and so I did a search through medical research journals, but I found no credible sources to support what the article you cited claims. The current research (with samples large enough to be reliable) on unilateral headaches generally doesn't pay attention to which side the attacks occur on.

I did find one article that claimed treatment of "Arteriovenous Malformation" could cause the cluster attacks to switch sides, but the article was published in the early 80s. If treatments can cause attacks to switch sides it seems unlikely that the side of the attack can really tell you anything about its causes.

On a personal note, I have found that my attacks change sides depending on what side of the world I'm on. When I am in the States my attacks are on the left side. When I am in South Asia doing research my attacks are on the right side. Cheesy

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Mike NZ

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Re: Left side headaches - medication overuse?
Reply #2 - Dec 6^th, 2017 at 5:45pm

Thank you for doing some fact checking on this which I can't do as I've only got limited access via PubMed (I really miss the level of access you have at university which I made the most of when I was there).

From reading a lot of posts here over several years it seems that a lot of people have their headaches predominantly on one side, but it can change both within and between cycles. It can also change after a nerve block too, which is the only treatment related change that springs to mind.

As for you geography linked side change this is interesting although trying to pin the cause down with a sample size of one is likely to be non-trivial to solve.

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