They’re called cluster headaches, and sufferers are pretty rare, about 1 in a thousand, primarily men. They occur on one side of the head only, usually behind the eye or the temple, they tend to occur without much of a warning and it is often described as the worst pain a person can suffer.

They are called cluster because they occur periodically, and have active and inactive cycles. They tend to occur at certain times of the year (April/May and Sept/Oct/Nov being most common) and they also have a tendency to occur at specific times,usually at night, often at the same time of night, even after weeks of no headaches.

The headaches can be accompanied by nausea, by either a stuffed or runny nose, a shaky feeling and in some cases a droop of the eye. Unlike in migraines, very often sufferers are unable to lie down when an attack occurs, needing to pace,to squeeze the head, to punch their legs, to hit the other side of their head hard to balance out the pain, the unspeakable agony that is occurring.

And then, it is gone. The headaches appear almost instantly, from nothing to utter agony in 15 minutes.They leave just as suddenly, leaving behind a shaky relief, a relief tempered by the knowledge that the headache will be back. A relief diluted by the fear of not knowing when the headache will be back.

You can’t tell people you have a headache, they don’t get it, a headache is a hangover thing, or a stress thing, a couple of aspirin and it’ll go away soon. Headache tablets DO NOT WORK, aspirin, paracetamol and ibuprofen are all useless, at best they can take the edge off long enough to create a quiet dark place to sit, or pace, or moan, or cry.

So you tell people you have a migraine, everyone knows someone who suffers them and it’s easier, but the recovery period is shorter for cluster headaches, so it looks like you suffer from mild migraines.

I get these headaches, in March and April, and in September,October and November. I get them, I suffer through them and then I forget them. I had none last year, at all, and only two earlier this year and I forgot how bad they are.

I’ve been getting them constantly since September, usually in the evenings, a sudden flaring up of pain, instant agony, an agony made worse by the knowledge that it is going to get worse, and it is going to get worse in a fucking hurry. I have had to crawl up the stairs to bed on a couple of occasions because I couldn’t manage to walk. It can be debilitating.

Within 3 hours, at most 4 it is gone, leaving behind what i call an echo, a headache that will linger at the back of my head, a dull throb, what normal people call a headache. While the echo is there I can relax a little, it doesn’t come back during an echo. As stupid as it sounds, I don’t take tablets to get rid of the echo, because I worry it could bring on another attack.

What gets me through it is the knowledge that soon, within the next 3 weeks or so, they will vanish, and I will have at least 4 months where I can forget about them. Some people get them year round, with no remission, some get shorter headaches of 20 minutes, but get them 10 or 12 times a day. I couldn’t deal with that, I just couldn’t. Clusters are known as “suicide” headaches for a reason.