- Written by Angie Brown
- Reporter for BBC Scotland, Edinburgh, East
Darren Frankisch has been suffering from headaches for 17 years that cause him to scream and bang his head against walls.
A 53-year-old man from Edinburgh said he felt like he was being hit with full force with a baseball bat while being stabbed in the eye with a knife.
Officially known as cluster headaches, they are considered to be one of the most painful conditions affecting humans.
“During lockdown I had to walk to the hospital and I remember thinking if a bus came I would jump in front of it. So I can see why it’s called a suicide headache,” Horticulture said. the engineer told BBC Scotland News.
“I live in fear of the next attack. It’s such a fear that it sucks the life out of me. It’s mental torture knowing it can happen at any time. I don’t want them to be very It’s scary.”
Attacks typically last 15 minutes to three hours and may occur seven or eight times a day.
But Darren also endured episodes lasting 12 hours.
He said his symptoms start with a shooting pain on the left side of his head, above his eye.
“My left eye starts to turn red, droops, and produces a lot of tears. My nose is stuffy and I have severe pain in my head,” he said.
“All I can say is that the attack was terrible. It felt like someone had taken a full swing with a baseball bat. It also felt like someone had taken a knife through my left eye and swung it down with a lever. It also felt like it.
“I’m very restless and sometimes I get sick and I scream into my pillow or bang my head against the wall or something hard. I can’t stand any light so I’m always in total darkness. I’m walking around the living room.”
Darren gets a lot of water in his left eye, so he sometimes goes for walks with a cloth over it.
He walks in deserted areas and carries a card with him in case someone tries to talk to him.
“When you’re having a seizure, you can’t communicate with anyone,” he says.
Darren said his seizures had recently become more frequent and lasted longer.
In May last year, he spent two nights in the A&E department of the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh after two attacks that lasted 12 hours each.
“These attacks were excruciating and the worst attacks I have ever experienced,” he said.
What is a cluster headache?
Cluster headaches are rare, affecting an estimated 65,000 people in the UK, or 1 in 1,000 people.
But Katie Martin, research manager at Brain Research in the UK, said it was incorrect to refer to a condition that was “more than just a headache”.
“As Darren explained, the excruciating pain of a cluster attack is excruciating, with people screaming in pain and banging their heads against walls in an attempt to end the suffering.
“We are funding much-needed research to advance our understanding of this condition in order to develop new treatments that will bring effective relief to everyone affected. Masu.”
Patients are usually over 30 years old, and headaches are more common in men than women.
The frequency of attacks varies from once every few days to multiple attacks per day. Each attack he may last from 15 minutes to several hours.
They cause multiple hospitalizations, restrict people’s lifestyles, and often lead to unemployment.
It is also associated with a three-fold increased risk of depression, and suicidality is also commonly reported.
Darren experienced his first episode in 2007 when he was 37 years old.
“While on holiday with my family in Prague, I had a headache so severe that I thought I had a serious illness, like a brain tumor,” said the father-of-two. .
Since then, he has been prescribed medications including steroids, lithium, heart medication and epilepsy medication.
“I don’t have epilepsy but they are trying everything on me and nothing is working.
“I also have an injection that I can use as soon as a seizure occurs, and sometimes that helps.”
Darren has an oxygen tank at home and tries to use it to stabilize the attack.
He has tried different diets and quit smoking and alcohol, but still suffers from severe headaches.
“The next step is to inject a nerve block into the head,” he said.
Local anesthetics numb the nerves for a short period of time. Steroids reduce inflammation. It can provide attack mitigation for up to one year.
“I’m willing to take this risk because these suicidal headaches have a serious impact on my life,” he said. “They destroy everything and I can’t do anything when the attack happens.
“It put pressure on my marriage and was one of the reasons for the divorce. I feel terrible for my children who will grow up hearing my screams.”
Darren has read some evidence suggesting that cluster headaches can be caused by meningitis. He had meningitis when he was 2 years old and again when he was 12 years old.
For now, he has to live with them.
“It does it when it wants to. I have no control over it. When it gets to you, it gets you,” he said.
For more information and support about suicide and hopelessness, visit BBC Action Line.