Community Follow-Up
100 Responses to the Salamanca Cluster Headache Test
After 100 community responses, the Salamanca screening test gets a careful follow-up: what matched the 2016 paper, what differed, and why this remains a reflection point rather than a diagnosis.
Research & Patient Perspective
A Signal, Not a Verdict: Cluster Headache and the COVID-19 Vaccines
A 2026 pharmacovigilance study in Headache reports a statistical signal linking certain COVID-19 vaccines - Vaxzevria most of all - with cluster headache. What the signal means, what it honestly can't, and one patient's grounded reflection.
Cluster Headache Hypothesis
The Pressure Valve: Sleep, Mitochondria and the Alarm Clock Headache
A landmark Nature paper on fly sleep pressure and two new human genetic studies on cluster headache never cite each other. Read side by side, they point at the same mitochondrial and tryptophan-pathway chemistry.
Cluster Headache Hypothesis
The Other Side of the Seesaw
If vitamin D3 is a counterweight, what loads the other side? A sequel to the Seesaw - and the uncomfortable possibility that D3 works partly by remodelling the gut.
Cluster Headache Hypothesis
The Vitamin D3 Seesaw
Vitamin D3 gets many people pain-free, but the way it works suggests it may be a counterweight, not a cure: holding inflammation back from the threshold without removing what drives it. A mechanism, graded honestly against the evidence.
Interactive Anatomy
Cluster Headache, Lit From the Inside
An interactive 3D walk-through of the one-sided attack circuit — hypothalamus, trigeminal branches, autonomic reflex and orbital pain field — across the six stages of an attack. Drag to rotate, play the sequence, toggle the layers.
Interactive & Community Study
The Salamanca Personality Test for Cluster Headache
Take a faithful replica of the screening test used in the 2016 Muñoz study, see your own 11-trait profile, and pool your answers with everyone else in the community. Results revealed once you've taken it yourself.
Cluster Headache History
Facies of Cluster: The Lion, the Mouse and the Unsettled Phenotype
Graham saw the lion, Kudrow tried to measure it, and Blau and Solomon asked whether smoking and alcohol explained it. A careful look at the old facies literature and the leonine mouse.
Cluster Headache Hypothesis
DMT and Cluster Headache: A 30-Second Smoking Gun?
A research hypothesis for the fastest abortive reports coming out of the cluster community: sigma-1, serotonin, oxygen sensing, HIF-1alpha, melatonin and the trigeminal-autonomic switch.
Research & Patient Perspective
Beyond the Silos: A Patient's Hopeful Case for Whole-System Cluster Headache Research
A hopeful patient's response to the IHS Special Interest Group webinar. The science is moving fast, the biology stays active between attacks, and from vitamin D to the microbiome the most exciting progress lies in joining the threads together. With illustrated diagrams.
History & Medicine
Cluster Headache: A History of Misunderstood Pain
From Nicolaes Tulp in 1641 to the ICHD-3 criteria of 2018, a personal account of how medicine slowly learned to name, misunderstand and finally recognise cluster headache.
Psychology & Traditional Medicine
The Fire That Turns Inward: Anger, Cluster Headache and What Two Traditions Agree On
A 2008 paper in Cephalalgia found that suppressed anger is a primary driver of chronic headache. It didn't mention cluster headache. It should have. Western psychodynamics and Traditional Chinese Medicine arrive at the same map from opposite directions.
VCD / PVFM / ILO
OpenAir VCD: A Breathing Practice Tool for ILO, VCD and PVFM
A calm digital support tool for daily breathing practice, rescue guidance and plain-language education for people living with Vocal Cord Dysfunction, PVFM or Inducible Laryngeal Obstruction.
Psychedelics & Microbiome
Psychedelics and the Gut-Brain Axis: Microbial Mediators of Therapeutic Efficacy?
The gut microbiome may influence how psychedelic compounds are metabolised and why therapeutic responses vary so widely between individuals. An integrative model that bridges psychopharmacology, immunology, and microbial ecology.
Psychology
The Ghost in My DNA: Finding Authority in a Fatherless World
When a father dies before his son is born, the loss isn't a memory. It is a structure. Exploring the architecture of absence and how the mind builds a man when the foundation stone is missing.
Psychology
The Lion in the Mirror: A Reflection on Personality Characteristics in Cluster Headache
Exploring the physiological and psychological architecture of the cluster headache patient: the Leonine Mouse paradox, anger suppression and the personality profile that keeps appearing in the literature.
Research Review
A Review of Cluster Headache Research Findings in 2025
Major scientific advances reported throughout 2025, including new treatment data, pathophysiology research and emerging approaches for one of medicine's most painful conditions.
AI & Cluster Headache
The Algorithmic Mirror: Lessons from a Psychosis Case Report for the Cluster Headache Community
As AI becomes part of everyday research for patients, how reliable are the answers it provides? An examination of what happens when LLMs intersect with patient vulnerability.
Microbiome
The Migraine-Gut Connection: Is Your Microbiome the Secret to a Pain-Free Brain?
The emerging science behind the migraine gut connection, from microbial diversity deficits and leaky gut driven inflammation to disrupted serotonin pathways and CGRP activation.
Vitamin D Regimen
From Cockpit to Clinic: The 14-Year Evolution of the Vitamin D3 Regimen for Cluster Headache
The full history of the high-dose Vitamin D3 regimen for cluster headache, from its origins in patient self-experimentation to its growing body of clinical literature.
Registry Data
New Insights from the Korean Cluster Headache Registry
What large-scale registry data tells us about cluster headache epidemiology, treatment response and patient characteristics across a population cohort.