Hey Alex!
You are completely right - CH is not strictly a vascular headache.
Vascular theory is being overturned, but I cannot access the latest Journal articles to back myself here. That's why I have not posted my thread on it, yet.
Imigran as a 5HT1 Serotonin agonist seems to have an as yet unknown mode of action.
Vasoconstriction is a side-effect of Triptans and can be seen.
But more recent studies and fMRI and PET scanning techniques show CH attacks that have occurred without vasodilation and patients that report relief without any seen vasoconstriction.
Go figure!
Check out Goadsby's paper:
The vascular theory of migraine—a great story wrecked by the facts.
I know it's Migraine...but focusing research efforts on what the 2 conditions share in common like CGRP release, seems to be a more productive way to look at the research.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/132/1/6.full
More here, specifically relating to CH being non-vascular headache:
http://www.expert-reviews.com/doi/pdf/10.1586/14737175.4.4.563
The references on the end of this paper are a good resource for anyone researching the more recent clinical studies and medical imaging techniques that helped to overturn vascular theory.
As for the seizure idea, I agree entirely.
That so many anti-seizure drugs even get a look-in is telling...
Although not terribly conclusive yet.
Obama's 10 billion to map the human brain (as per the human genome) over the next 10 years may well unlock that secret.
Someone else hears it too!
When I have used particularly Imigran injection, I have a click, click, click sound seemingly coming from around my base of skull, or brainstem area.
I thought it was a nervous system anomaly until someone next to me asked "What's that clicking sound?"
That absolutely blew me away.
I thought it had to be my nerves sending electrical signals, fooling my auditory nerve (or some other complex pathway) into leading me to believe that I was hearing something that was not there.
I never told anyone, ever,.
Then, unprompted, a third party asks me what the sound is! It's actually audible.
It sounds like hot metal cooling down.
An overheated saucepan or stove element contracting.
A hot race car cooling down after a fast drive; brakes, exhaust all contracting as they cool. clank, click, clank etc...
It only happens when relief begins, never before.
Very interesting indeed...
I wonder what it is...
Cheers, Ben.
This post was edited on 20/05/2013 at 6:37 pm
