Stu News and Photos

At the tail end of the last century, I found myself looking to make a life for myself as a writer, and to heed the siren call of South California. Upon my settlement in the land of fruits and nuts, I developed headaches.

These weren't ordinary headaches, ones that could be eased by a cup of coffee or a nosh or a couple of Advil. No, these headaches were far worse. They emerged into a cactus flower of a throbbing ache, taking about fifteen minutes to go from pain-free to generally disabling. The feeling was as if someone was slowly blowing up a balloon that rested just behind my right eye.

The headaches would last for several hours and no medicine would keep them at bay. Not Advil, not Tylenol, not Excedrin. Not antihistamines, not decongestants, not barbiturates.

I visited several types of doctors, all of whom sent me to another doctor, none of whom had a cure. MRIs, CT scans, PET scans, X-rays, all read by technicians and physicians as normal, as benign. So, y'know, yay, no brain tumor. But those pesky headaches.

And when I say pesky, I mean so painful that I'd fantasize about pulling my eye out to relieve the pressure.

As the doctors were not helping, Leslie and I took to the research stacks at the local libraries and the volumes of information on the internet. Unfortunately, nothing fit my symptoms.

Years went by.

Years.

Then, in the throws of another disabling, punishing headache, I made my way to the computer and began a new path of research. After reading through another dozen websites, I came upon some information on a different type of headache than I'd read about previously. They were called "Cluster Headaches." (Read the aforementioned link to Wikipedia, as cluster headaches have another, far more descriptive name that I won't mention here for the folks who don't want to hear the name. Suffice it to say that the name they give these headaches is entirely appropriate.

Anyway, it turns out that my symptoms matched up almost exactly with the diagnosis of cluster headaches. And to make sure, I had Leslie go over the symptoms without my input and she came back in full agreement: I had cluster headaches.

Immediately I went to an independent neurologist and detailed my symptoms and my diagnosis. He went down the list of symptoms with me: Pain only on one side, no relief from any common medications, restlessness, inability to lay down, unbearable pressure behind my eye, the sensation of a stuffed nose... All of this had him nodding in agreement: "You've got cluster headaches."

Ok, great, wonderful, marvelous. But now what?

First, a brief explanation of this type of headache: Something causes dilation of the blood vessels in my face, causing pressure on my trigeminal nerve. This nerve helps me feel my face, as well as helps with eating. So, kind of important, the eating thing. So surgery to cut the trigeminal nerve is not a way to go just yet. What are my realistic options?

Turns out there are two stages to fighting cluster headaches. One is prophylactic (preventative) - For me, we're trying a daily dose of a beta-blocker, Propranolol. This hasn't seemed to do much, but they say it takes a while for it to become effective.

However, all is not lost. The second stage of dealing with cluster headaches is to take an abortive (to stop the headache as soon as it starts). For me, the drug that was prescribed was Zomig, an inhalant.

So now it's the day after my consultation with the neurologist and I start to feel a headache coming on. So I walk into the bathroom, open up a Zomig, pop the top, shove the tip up my nose, lean my head back a bit, and fire away. And you know what? My headache went away! No kidding, my headache just slowly drifted away, as if the air had been let out of the balloon.

Now, cluster headaches come in clusters, so I've had the beginnings of the headaches every day for a few weeks, but the Zomig worked every single time without fail. A blessing. And now I'm in a headache-free period, which may last for a month or more. But when the headaches come back, no more debilitation. No more lost days. No more agonizing, soul-killing journeys into near-madness.

So, anyway, that's what's up with me. Maybe later I'll mention my night of the kidney stones.