The link between sleep apnea and cluster headaches

To have cluster headaches is to experience one of the worst pains known to humanity. However, it’s one of the most mysterious ailments to medical science. It seems to come and go without any warning, with weeks, months or years between attack cycles. Starting back in 1984, studies have been done trying to find anything that could be in common with a large percentage of cluster headache sufferers. That link may be sleep apnea.

Sleep Apnea

Sleep apnea is whenever a sleeper stops breathing when in sleep. This can happen for a variety of reasons, but the most common is being overweight. The sheer weight of the extra fat in the neck presses down on the air passages and closes them, thus making a strange and incredibly loud snort or strangled noise that often wakes a person up.

But the vast majority of cluster headache sufferers are not overweight. On the contrary, they often look skeletal. But sleep apnea can also be triggered by tumors growths in the neck that could press down on air passages, including thin people with small or recessive chins. These growths could be on the outside or the inside of the neck.

Night Terror

Cluster headache attacks start a couple of hours after the sufferer has fallen asleep. The attacks stay all night or only an hour at night. However, this happens for several nights or weeks of night in a row. Sleep apnea happens only after a person has fallen asleep, because the muscles are completely relaxed in order to close off an air passage. There may be a connection.

It is very difficult for cluster headache sufferers to find relief from the incredible pain. But one promising treatment is “oxygen therapy. Why would more oxygen help ease cluster headache pain? Could it be that the person was suffering fro a lack of oxygen in the first place? People with sleep apnea already have trouble breathing or may breathe in a very shallow manner.

Some Studies

A paper “to be published in 2009 from The Pain Center at Cedars-Sinai supports this theory. This is the latest in a string of studies with the most eye-opening being one “done in 2000 done by the Sleep Disorders Center at the University of Michigan. Out of 20 test subjects, 5 had both cluster headaches and sleep apnea.

This was a surprise to some of the test subjects, who did not know they had sleep apnea. Although the typical sleep apnea patient makes noises that are so loud he wakes himself up, there are milder and quieter forms of sleep apnea. Studies suggest that anyone with cluster headaches should be tested to see if they also have sleep apnea. It’s hoped then that some sufferers of cluster headaches can finally get a good night’s sleep.