A CONFUSING TYPE OF HEADACHE

This post is dedicated to a patient who had  terrible headaches, redness of  an eye  and underwent medication for several months, without any relief. Her radiological investigation was suggestive of sinusitis affecting frontal and ethmoid sinus and was treated for the same. After  that she again developed redness of eyes, watering and head ache, and  finally arrived at a diagnosis of CLUSTER HEADACHE (was also seen by a neurologist to rule out any pathology  of higher centres like brain) 

WHAT IS CLUSTER HEADACHE? 

This headache mimicks, migraine and sinusitis. Patient may present with excruciating headaches occuring in clusters, usually one sided. There will be nasal discharge, nasal block, watering and redness from  the eyes. Headache of sudden onset and intense pain involving forehead and jaw of affected side and  it can go on for months. 

PREVENTIVE measures often opted like avoiding direct exposure to sunlight, not to take too much strain on the eyes to name a few. 

When a  headache patient comes with eye and nasal symptoms  always keep in mind the possibility of CLUSTER HEADACHE. This patient had both sinusitis and cluster headache. She is now better after treatment. 

There are other types of aches and pains, like temporal arteritis, trigeminal neuralgia, which will be dealt later. Don't want  readers to get headache after reading   so many types of headaches.