Headache

[headcase]

I've been having these headaches on and off for 20 years - I'm not worried about them, but they're bothersome and I'd like to get to the bottom of them.

They manifest as facial pain mostly down the side of my nose and I used to think they were caused by sinus trouble, but I had my sinuses operated on and that didn't help. I now think the pain is centred around the eye (either or both), and the headache is sometimes eased by closing my eyes. I'll have headaches more or less continually for several days, and then be free of them for a couple of weeks. Ordinary painkillers don't help. When I have a bad headache, really all I want to do is lie down and sleep. They're debilitating, but NOT unbearably painful (like a cluster headache would be).

I have subacute angle closure glaucoma, which produced a similar (though not identical) pain. That condition is, however, now fully controlled, and I've had my eye pressures measured during a bad headache and they were normal.

My doc diagnosed 'atypical facial pain', but I'm wondering whether there might be more to it. Is there such a thing as a very mild cluster headache?