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22 January 2018

Wait – Why Isn’t This Cluster Headache Treatment Prescribed More Often?

James Information, Resources, Treatments 0

Cluster headache has the very appropriate name “suicide headache”. It’s rare enough that we haven’t studied it nearly enough, and yet common enough to affect our communities in a big way, and individuals in a huge way.

With a shortage of good treatments, you would think that doctors would prescribe whatever will work that’s not a huge risk. So why is one treatment often overlooked?

Oxygen Therapy for Cluster Headache That treatment is oxygen therapy.

Oxygen therapy for headache was first mentioned in literature almost 80 years ago, so this is not a new therapy. It’s also considered to be a fairly safe, stable option. As the Migraine Trust says:

Oxygen is one of the safest ways to treat cluster headache. You need to breathe the oxygen in at a rate of between 7 and 12 litres per minute. The treatment usually starts to work within 15 to 20 minute. For some people the attack is delayed rather than stopped altogether. [source]

An article from the National Headache Foundation last month lamented the fact that oxygen therapy is still underutilized for cluster headache:

Despite treatment guidelines recommending the use of oxygen for the acute therapy of cluster headache, oxygen remains underutilized. A recent study looking at the cost of oxygen for cluster headache found the reason for its lack of use may be because of poor physician awareness of the treatment, as well as the lack of understanding for how to write and fill a prescription for high-flow oxygen.

According to a recent study, the price of oxygen therapy varies quite a bit, but averages out at around $1000 per year in the USA. Most private insurance plans will cover it. So – why not make use of it?

If you have cluster and are looking for solutions, you can help your doctor get more information about prescribing oxygen therapy. In the USA, click the link at the bottom of this article to email the National Headache Foundation for information.

Prescription information for the UK can be found here.

In other countries, talk with your local specialist or call a headache or pain clinic.

For more information, check the Michigan Headache & Neurological Institute.

17 July 2008

Oxygen therapy to stop cluster and migraine pain

James Discoveries & Stats, Treatments 10

Relieving the pain of cluster or migraine using oxygen is not a new idea. But there are various kinds of oxygen therapy, and we need a better understanding of just how well it works, what type of therapy works best, and whether or not this may be a practical treatment.

Michael Bennett and his team set out to review the studies that have been done on two different types of oxygen therapy. They discovered that there may indeed be some benefits.

The two types of therapy we’re talking about are hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) and normobaric oxygen therapy (NBOT). The latter involves breathing pure oxygen at normal pressure, and the former ("hyper") breathing pure oxygen at a higher pressure. HBOT therapy requires putting the patient in a specially designed chamber.

So the researchers pulled together 9 small studies that included a total of 201 people.

The reviewers didn’t find the evidence very strong, but there does seem to be some evidence that HBOT may help people with migraine and possibly cluster during the attack, and NBOT may help people with cluster. From these studies there isn’t any evidence of relief from future attacks.

In the end, Bennett says,"We believe that hyperbaric oxygen is also a reasonable measure for migraineurs who have not responded to other measures to treat an acute attack. However, the poor availability of hyperbaric chambers makes this an option only in a minority of health facilities."

So at this point it’s the practicality that’s the problem. Most of us don’t have a HBOT chamber around the corner that we can hop into when we start into a migraine attack.

You can read the details in the official review: Normobaric and hyperbaric oxygen therapy for migraine and cluster headache

Have you ever tried any kind of oxygen therapy? How did it work for you? Leave a comment!