Cluster headaches and oxygen

[Carlos Danger]

Copy and paste make quotes like that easier.

Huh? What quote?

 

[nwhitney]

I can't remember where I read this and maybe someone else can shed some light on it, I read that giving yourself a "brain freeze" is an effective means to treat a migraine/cluster headache. I think it has something to do with a "resetting" of neurons.

 

[chaz90]

Just had my first ever patient with cluster headaches and treated with oxygen by NRB at 10 LPM. My partner transported him, but said his headaches were mostly resolved with the O2. The patient also said he had been given a prescription for home O2 in the past to treat his condition but his tank was broken. Cool stuff, and I wouldn't have known about it without this thread.

 

[Brandon O]

PA and MD students:

Quick! without looking it up, name as many branches of the trigeminal nerve as you can.

No, not V1, V2, and V3.....all the branches....

I can't remember this stuff to save my life. If anyone knows of any good memory tricks, please let me know.

Are you looking for the distal sensory branches (after the three main divisions), or the non-GSA components? You can waste many of the best years of your life trying to memorize every little nerve that somebody has put a name to...

 

[Handsome Robb]

Just had my first ever patient with cluster headaches and treated with oxygen by NRB at 10 LPM. My partner transported him, but said his headaches were mostly resolved with the O2. The patient also said he had been given a prescription for home O2 in the past to treat his condition but his tank was broken. Cool stuff, and I wouldn't have known about it without this thread.

The way chart review has been lately I'd get popped for not calling for orders since we don't have a protocol for high flow O2 for cluster headaches.

 

[Brandon O]

The way chart review has been lately I'd get popped for not calling for orders since we don't have a protocol for high flow O2 for cluster headaches.

I guess on some level I respect a measured approach to oxygen use... but this seems like a bit much.

 

[broken stretcher]

can someone explain what exactly a cluster headache is... what is different from a regular headache?

 

[mycrofft]

can someone explain what exactly a cluster headache is... what is different from a regular headache?

Probably. Start with Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_headache


Or medline

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000786.htm

More pubmed, the pathogenesis:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8081523

Here's oxygen and cluster HA in PubMedhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19996400

"Fifty-seven patients with episodic cluster headache and 19 with chronic cluster headache were available for the analysis. For the primary end point the difference between oxygen, 78% (95% confidence interval, 71%-85% for 150 attacks) and air, 20% (95% confidence interval, 14%-26%; for 148 attacks) was significant (Wald test, chi(5)(2) = 66.7, P < .001). There were no important adverse events.

Treatment of patients with cluster headache at symptom onset using inhaled high-flow oxygen compared with placebo was more likely to result in being pain-free at 15 minutes."


Doesn't say how long it works.