Welcome
Hi! If you're an Australian sufferer of these evil headaches, then you've found the Aussie site dedicated to helping you and your GP find ways to treat the pain in Australia according to Australian health regulations and available drugs/treatments!
If you get these or care for or live with someone who does, then this site is for you! You'll find the site's members a compassionate group of sufferers and partners/carers who know first hand what it is like when these demons arrive every day, so you're far from alone!
If you have been sent here by someone who suffers these, please see this page to understand what they go through.
Read this ABC Interview with Dr Peter Goadsby, Professor of Clinical Neurology at University College, London, who heads up the Headache Group at London's Institute of Neurology, leaders of research in the area.
BBC Story about Dr. Peter J. Goadsby! - Dr. Goadsby and his research team may have found the cause of cluster headaches
Download the article as a .PDF
Total Members of this site: 306
As a sufferer, You'll also probably agree that there is a widespread lack of understanding by GPs and specialists - probably due to their rareness (69 people in 100,000 get them) I always find I know more about the Cluster Headache than the GPs I have gone to just by research on the internet.
This ignorance unfortunately retards the treatment of cluster headaches. For example your GP needs to call and get authorisation to prescribe Sumatriptan, (Imigran) and while that is ok, the limit you can get is 5 boxes (10 doses) every 3 months, Which is plainly insufficient. There needs to be a special exception in place for Cluster Headache Sufferers, because as we all know, even if you get just one per day, you're likely to suffer them for at least 3 weeks at a time, which adds up to 21 doses. And that's if you're lucky. However there are ways around it, for example, the pharmacist informed me that my GP can make what is called a 'private' prescription which will bypass that rule.
This site will grow to become the Australian home for 'clusterheads' It will be an information resource and a forum for Australian sufferers of Cluster Headaches
At this site, we can share information and treatments and the latest advances in medicine, and maybe, by collecting info from polls, we may find a link between sufferers that might lead to identifying the cause and eventually a cure. So Join us today and be alone no more!