I just received this from a ClusterBuddy and felt it well worth passing on to others who must live with this nightmare we endure.

Many of his personal observations tally exactly with my own beliefs and his final comment rings only too true for so many of us.



Hi Brian

I saw this and wanted to share it with you.

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PDF - attached

From the results section:

Significantly more CH than control participants had lifetime active suicidal ideation (47.0% vs. 26.7%; p = 0.001), high suicide risk (38.0% vs. 18.5%; p = 0.0009), lifetime depression history (67.0%% vs. 32.6%; p < 0.00001), and demoralization (28.0% vs. 15.6%; p = 0.02).

In some ways I’m surprised that as many as 47% of people with CH have had suicidal ideation and yet in some ways surprised that it is “only” 47%. Probably only understandable to someone who has CH or is a great supporter of someone with CH.

No surprise about all the other numbers being significantly higher for people with CH than no CH.

Table 1 is also interesting with 94% of people in the sample of CH people being Caucasian. But hard to know if that is linked to CH incidence, likelihood of being diagnosed / respond to survey or something else or combinations. Similarly 68% are high / middle on economic (salary) but this may be linked to the ability to get diagnosed over anything else, although I did note for myself a strong link to stress level changes (high to low).

No real surprises with table 4 comparing episodic to chronic CH, with 1 in 3 chronic CH having made a suicide plan and 1 in 7 having attempted it. No wonder it is also called suicide headache. Although Todd Rozen had found with a larger sample 55% of people with CH had lifetime suicidal ideation (I’d put good weight onto Todd Rozen’s research).

When I was being diagnosed by a headache specialist, one of the questions I was asked was “…if in the middle of severe one of these headaches you were given a loaded pistol, would you consider using it?” She said that from her experience, nobody with migraines or similar says yes and just about everyone with CH says yes.

I wonder how many lives CH.com has saved over the years?

Regards,

[A CHead]


Koo2021_Article_DemoralizationPredictsSuicidal.pdf582kB




Happily,  CH.com always gives us the chance to talk to someone who truly understands,

Brian down under.

Yes from my own experiences with chronic CH I understand this post well. There is a sense of hopelessness. Thanks for posting it Brian.