A young Australian who suffers from crippling cluster headaches was left in agonizing pain after the only medication that relieved his discomfort was pulled from shelves.
Debilitating cluster headaches affect one in every 1,000 Australians, including Perth youngster Joshua Lee Spencer.
“You really want to die… because the pain is so intense,” Lee Spencer told 7News.
In the last two weeks alone, Mr Lee Spencer went to Perth’s Armadale Hospital five times because the pain was so bad.
Debilitating cluster headaches affect one in 1,000 Australians, including Perth youngster Joshua Lee Spencer (pictured)
“It’s like someone stuck a hot knife through my eye and then reached back and stabbed it,” he said.
The most effective treatment for Joshua cluster headaches is sumatriptan nasal spray.
Unfortunately for Joshua and other sufferers, the product has been discontinued due to what has been described as “commercial viability.”
Andre Ngeow of the Australian Pharmacy Guild explains: “If demand is not high enough to drive the viability of that product, companies will make the decision to suspend distribution.”
Sumatriptan is also available in tablet form, but unfortunately this medication does not work for Joshua.
He is reluctant to use preventive medicine because of the risk of side effects.
The cause of cluster headaches is a mystery.
“The problem is that we don’t really know what is causing this,” said Dr. Vijay Kama of Armadale Hospital.
The most effective treatment for Joshua’s cluster headaches is the nasal spray sumatriptan (pictured), but it has been discontinued due to “commercial viability.”
When Joshua’s mother, Jacinta Lee, found out they were discontinuing Sumatriptan nasal spray, she panicked.
“I started calling pharmacies to see if they had the product in stock and asking them if they had it in stock.”
Jacinta is distressed by the devastating impact that severe headaches are having on her son and has serious concerns for his future.
‘It’s very quiet in the middle of the night. Everyone is asleep and you hear ‘kill me, just kill me!’. I jump out of my bed,’ she said.
Do you know what scares me the most? I don’t want to go back and see him dead because he committed suicide. I won’t accept it.