Posted by Jane (24.163.209.175) on August 22, 2001 at 19:49:04:
Does anyone have longer lasting cluster headaches?
My boyfriend has had chronic headaches that started when he was eighteen (no trauma associated). He is now thirty one. He for the most part feels like he's going to get a headache (shadows) all of the time and often has minor pain in his forhead over his eye right when he wakes up in the morning. If he doesn't take Excedrin when he feels like he's going to get one, he will definitely end up with a severe headache and even when he does, he sometimes end up with headaches. When he has a headache he "looks" like he has one. His right eye gets droopy and bloodshoot and blood vessels sometimes pop out of his forehead. The pain always starts in the same spot over the right eye and always hurts more on the right side of his forehead. When he has a headache, he can't sit still and clutches his head. Once the headache starts, he hasn't found anything over the counter that will stop it.
The headaches sound a lot like chronic cluster headaches except that they don't last a short time. They last anywhere from four to five hours to all day.
Today, I took him to the ER because he had one of the worst headaches he's ever had. They gave him Toredol and Compazine which helped a little, but then they gave him Morphine which helped a lot more and made the headache tolerable for him.
Has anyone else had cluster headaches that have lasted a longer period of time than the classic 15 minutes to 3 hours?