A young Australian suffering from crippling cluster headaches is left in agonizing pain after the only drug that eased his discomfort was taken off the shelves.
Debilitating cluster headaches affect one in a thousand Australians, including young Perth man Joshua Lee Spencer.
“You really want to die… because the pain is so bad,” Lee Spencer told 7News.
In the past two weeks, Mr Lee Spencer has attended Perth’s Armadale Hospital five times because the pain was so intense.
Debilitating cluster headaches affect one in a thousand Aussies, including young Perth man Joshua Lee Spencer (pictured)
“(It’s) like someone is going through my eye with a hot, burning knife and then reaches all the way back and stabs,” he said.
The most effective treatment for Joshua’s cluster headache is the Sumatriptan nasal spray.
Unfortunately for Joshua and other patients, the product has been discontinued due to what is described as ‘commercial viability’.
Andre Ngeow of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia explains: ‘If demand is not high enough to increase the viability of that product, companies will decide to stop distribution.’
Sumatriptan is also available in tablet form, but unfortunately this medicine does not work for Joshua.
He is reluctant to use preventive medications because of the risk of side effects.
The cause of cluster headaches is a mystery.
“The problem is we don’t know exactly what causes this,” said Dr. Vijay Kama from Armadale Hospital.
The most effective treatment for Joshua’s cluster headache is the nasal spray Sumatriptan (pictured), but this has been discontinued due to ‘commercial viability’
When Joshua’s mother Jacinta Lee heard that the Sumatriptan nasal spray was being discontinued, she panicked.
“I started calling pharmacies to see if they had the product in stock and asking if they had stock.”
Jacinta is saddened by the devastating impact the severe headaches are having on her son and is deeply concerned about his future.
‘It’s so quiet in the middle of the night. Everyone is sleeping and you hear ‘kill me, just kill me!’. “I jump out of bed,” she said.
‘You know what’s most frightening to me? I don’t want to come back and see him dead because he committed suicide – I won’t accept that.’