Questions posted in the Neurology and Neurosurgery Forum have been answered by doctors from The Cleveland Clinic Foundation.

Question Title: Neuralgia threathens my wedding day....

Forum: Neurology Forum
Topic: Neuralgia


For the past fifteen months, for between four to five times a week, I wake at night between the times of 1am and 3 am. For one full year my left eye just needed to be constantly torn with frantic rubbing to ease the itch.. Always only in one eye.. Then it began on my right eye but never together
The white area of my eye gets completely red and seems to shrink. The feeling in the one eye is quite gritty and tender. After seeing two eye surgeons and an homoeopathist three different doctors who treated me with everything from sulphur tablets to antihistamines, to eye drops to nasal creams to other medications I went to see a mediacal allergy doctor who seems to believe I may be suffering from cluster headaches and at the moment i m being treated with Senequin (which didnt suit me) and amitriptilane drugs which don't seem to suit me either at the moment. By not suiting me I mean they are of a low dosage and are making me depressed,( very low) but theyhave had an 80% success rate in that its not as frequent , its more like three times a week.
One thing I should mention is that I don't have the pain that other more urgent sufferers have, but my face looks battered and my eye raw. (Someone mentioned shadow cluster )
I'm getting married in three weeks and what am I going to do if I wake up in the morning and my eys is destroyed with the itching and tearing.. I'm miserable...
like that ..Any ideas...........


Dear Deirdre:

Cluster headaches must have SEVERE PAIN in or behind or around the eye, not itching. A red watering eye is indeed seen, but it is almost always on one side, and on the same side each time.

Your description does not sound like a cluster headache to me at all. More likely an allergy, infection, or auto-immune problem. Find a good eye doctor!

Good luck!



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