People suffering from cluster headaches experience extreme pain around one eye and/or the temple. The pain is very intense and often barely bearable. Attacks can occur several times a day and last an average of about an hour, but can range from fifteen minutes to as long as three hours. A troublesome side effect is that attacks often occur suddenly and at night, causing people with cluster headaches to quickly become exhausted due to lack of sleep.
One of the advantages of the osteopathic approach is the open and fresh perspective with which complaints are viewed. This regularly leads to different insights and sometimes to new possibilities.
My initial question to a patient is always: “What can I do for you?” I often receive a diagnosis immediately. That is, of course, fine, but my follow-up question is always: “Understood, but what exactly are your complaints?” In practice, a previously made diagnosis often proves to be correct, but sometimes it was made a long time ago and the situation warrants a fresh perspective.
For example, on December 21, I saw a 59-year-old woman who had suffered from cluster headaches for 25 years. In this case, it was important to know that she had suffered significantly from sinus infections as a teenager and had even undergone surgery for them.
During my examination, I noticed tension in the left part of the frontal bone. In my opinion, this so-called intraosseous tension was caused by a significant fall on the forehead, presumably around the age of seven.
When I asked about this, the patient explained that as a child, she was sitting on a stone laundry tub in the bathroom and fell forward onto the hard tiled floor.
In my view, this case does not only involve an issue with blood vessels or nerves, but potentially also long-term tension in the bone tissue of the forehead, affecting the surrounding structures.
As always, it remains to be seen how the body responds to osteopathic treatment.
