Morris Levin MD - Understanding Your Migraines

Finally, a book that takes years of clinical experience and decades of scientific discoveries and boils them down into simple, easy-to-understand language, giving patients insight they can use to manage their headaches successfully. Understanding Your Migraines gives hope to the most challenging-to-treat headache sufferers. A true testimony to the power of academic medicine, this book reflects the many thousands of hours the authors spent listening to their patients, addressing their concerns, taking endless notes, making symptom-based diagnoses, practicing evidence-based medicine, treating the patients themselves rather than their lab tests and images, ensuring the benefits of treatments, not blaming the patient when treatments fail, and most importantly, taking the time to educate patients about their illnesses.

Rami Burstein, PhD, John Hedley-Whyte Professor of Anaesthesia and Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA

Understanding Your Migraines, written by two pre-eminent thought leaders in the headache field, is a comprehensive look at migraine and other related disorders. Each of the chapters begins with a case history to introduce a topic and as the information is delivered the authors refer to the case to drive home their point. While we headache medicine specialists discuss these issues with our patients, not all clinicians have the time or the expertise required. This book is useful in that it reinforces what we clinicians tell our patients but also provides education on topics that may not have not been broached during the visit.

Lawrence C. Newman, MD, Director, The Headache Institute, Mount Sinai St. Lukes, New York, NY

Migraine is a common, disabling, and often misunderstood disease. For those contending with migraine, it is a challenge to find current and reliable information on what migraine is, and what it isnt, and what measures will bring it under control. Understanding Your Migraines now provides welcome and authoritative guidance from two renowned migraine doctors and researchers. Written in an engaging and clear style, which is punctuated by illustrative patient vignettes, Professors Levin and Ward logically guide the reader to understand the process of diagnosing migraine and the multiple approaches to effective migraine therapy.

Robert E. Shapiro, MD, PhD, Professor of Neurological Sciences, Larner College of Medicine, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT

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Oxford University Press 2017

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Levin, Morris, 1955 author. | Ward, Thomas N., author.

Title: Understanding your migraines : a guide for patients and families / by Morris Levin, MD, Director, Headache Center, Department of Neurology, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, Thomas N. Ward, MD, Professor of Neurology, Emeritus, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, NH.

Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2017] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016039465 | ISBN 9780190209155 (alk. paper) | eISBN 9780190209179

Subjects: LCSH: MigrainePopular works. | MigraineCase studies.

Classification: LCC RC392.L45 2017 | DDC 616.8/4912dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016039465

This material is not intended to be, and should not be considered, a substitute for medical or other professional advice. Treatment for the conditions described in this material is highly dependent on the individual circumstances. And, while this material is designed to offer accurate information with respect to the subject matter covered and to be current as of the time it was written, research and knowledge about medical and health issues is constantly evolving and dose schedules for medications are being revised continually, with new side effects recognized and accounted for regularly. Readers must therefore always check the product information and clinical procedures with the most up-to-date published product information and data sheets provided by the manufacturers and the most recent codes of conduct and safety regulation. The publisher and the authors make no representations or warranties to readers, express or implied, as to the accuracy or completeness of this material. Without limiting the foregoing, the publisher and the authors make no representations or warranties as to the accuracy or efficacy of the drug dosages mentioned in the material. The authors and the publisher do not accept, and expressly disclaim, any responsibility for any liability, loss or risk that may be claimed or incurred as a consequence of the use and/or application of any of the contents of this material.

I would like to dedicate this book to my patients. They are the ones who bear the burden of migraine, usually with great courage and resilience. They have helped me grow as a physician and headache specialist, and I am grateful for their patience with that process. I also dedicate it to my wife, Karen, for putting up with my spending so much time with this project.

M. L.

I dedicate this book to the headache patients I have worked with over the years and to their families who share the burden with them.

T. N. W.

Around half to three-quarters of all adults in the world have had a significant headache in the last year. And as much as 4% of the worlds population has a headache on 15 or more days every month. This amounts to more than 200 million people who have headache on more days than not!

Headache conditions affect people of all ages, races, income levels, and geographical areas. The World Health Organization has found that migraine, the major cause of recurring headaches, is one of the worlds leading causes of disability, not to mention suffering.

If you are reading this book you either suffer from headaches or care about someone who has troubling headaches. People who struggle with headaches often look fine and receive little sympathy. People with serious headache problems often wait for months to see specialists in the field, if they are even referred to such specialists by their primary physicians. Even after their evaluation by a specialist, headache sufferers often remain uncertain about their diagnosis, why they have their headaches, and which of the many treatment options might be best for them. This book will address those concerns in a common-sense and straightforward yet comprehensive fashion.