Migraine Brain: Your Breakthrough Guide to Fewer Headaches, Better Health

INTRODUCTION "I'd Rather Die Than Get Another Migraine!" Melissa is a waitress in her mid-thirties who has suffered from excruciating migraines since she was a little girl. A few months before she became my patient, she gave birth to her first child. I asked how her labor had gone. "I hate to say this," she confided, "but it was a piece of cake compared to what I'm used to." When she went into labor, Melissa told me, the obstetrician instructed her to let him know when the pain got really intense so he could give her an epidural. Before she knew it, her daughter was born -- without any anesthetic. "When people say childbirth is one of worst pains there is, I'm sorry, it's not!" Melissa said, shaking her head. "For someone used to having migraine pain, childbirth doesn't even come close." Terry is a businessman in his mid-sixties who has suffered from migraines for thirty years. Several times a month, he gets a horrible pounding in his head, vomits repeatedly, and can barely move. Last year, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and began extensive chemotherapy. "You know something?" he said to me. "I've never missed a day of work from the chemo. But migraines? I get so sick I can't walk. I can't tell you how much work I've missed from migraines." Gwen is a high school teacher in her forties who has suffered from devastating migraines since she was a teenager. During an attack, she experiences intense throbbing and pounding down the side of her face, so painful she can do nothing but lie completely still in a dark room. Gwen also has heart problems, which means she is not supposed to take the effective new migraine drugs called triptans. Not long ago, in a migraine support group I hosted in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Gwen stood up and made a dramatic announcement: She was going to risk taking triptans. "I know they're bad for my heart, but I can't stand this anymore," she said. "I'd rather die than get another migraine!" The good news is, she doesn't have to make that choice. If you've ever felt like these patients did, you're far from alone. Thirty million people in the United States get migraines. If you don't get them, you certainly know someone who does: One in ten people in this country is a migraineur (a person who gets migraines), and one in four American households include a migraineur. Migraine is the ninth-leading cause of disability among women, and the nineteenth most-common disability in the world, more common than diabetes or asthma. It's also one of the most painful and debilitating. The throbbing head pain and nausea can knock you out of commission, sometimes for days. More than 76 percent of migraineurs have had to postpone planned activities with children and other loved ones because of migraine sickness, and 50 percent say they can't do anything at all but lie in their beds during an attack. Migraine runs up more than $1 billion a year in health costs and at least $13 billion in losses to industry due to absenteeism and reduced effectiveness at work. Despite the fact that it's so common and has so much impact on our society, migraine is one of the most misunderstood, misdiagnosed, and undertreated diseases on earth. Most people with migraine illness don't realize they have it. Only half of people with migraine have sought a doctor's help, and half of these get the wrong diagnosis once they see a doctor. Many new, exciting treatments can bring tremendous relief. But because so many myths about migraine persist -- even among doctors -- more than 22 million Americans are suffering needlessly. The Migraine Brainwill change that. I got my first migraine when I was a medical student in my early 20s. At first, I thought I was just having bad headaches, but it didn't occur to me to mention these headaches to my own doctor. Headaches, even painful ones, didn't seem like an important medical concern. And the pain would always resolve, although soBernstein, Carolyn is the author of 'Migraine Brain: Your Breakthrough Guide to Fewer Headaches, Better Health', published 2008 under ISBN 9781416547686 and ISBN 1416547681.