The Migraine Brain: Your Breakthrough Guide to Fewer Headaches, Better Health
Product Description
You know that your migraine isn’t just a headache. But you may not know that migraine actually is a neurological disease. Affecting one in five women, one in twenty men, and one in twenty children, it’s a debilitating, complex, and chronic condition that manifests in a combination of symptoms that can include excruciating head pain as well as other distinctive physical and emotional effects. Yet it’s also a disease that you can get control of, improve, and manage, as Dr. Carolyn Bernstein has discovered in her seventeen years as a Harvard Medical School faculty member and practicing neurologist.
Praised for her excellence and compassion, the founder of the Women’s Headache Center near Boston, and a migraine sufferer herself, Dr. Bernstein has helped hundreds of her patients get better. Now, with The Migraine Brain, the most comprehensive, up-to-the-minute book on migraines ever written, you will be able to do the same — reduce the frequency and intensity of your migraines, learn how to prevent and curtail them and how to recover from them more quickly, and mitigate migraine’s effects on every aspect of your life: in the workplace and at home and during sex and travel. Every migraine is different because everyone who gets a migraine has a distinctive “Migraine Brain” with its own sensitivities and triggers. That’s why it’s so important for you to develop a personalized wellness plan to radically reduce the number and severity of your migraines.
Dr. Bernstein also explains why migraines happen, why they are so often misdiagnosed, and why so few people get the right treatment for them. She reveals the latest research that shows that Migraine Brains share a hypersensitivity to stimuli — the Migraine Brain can actually look different from others on a brain scan — and is more likely to experience a cascade of neurological reactions that give rise to the common clusters of migraine symptoms. This breakthrough medical knowledge makes treatment and recovery possible with new migraine-specific drugs as well as with complementary treatments such as yoga, biofeedback, and an exercise regimen.
With the extraordinarily thorough recommendations of The Migraine Brain in your hands, you will be fully equipped with all the latest information you need to understand migraines and to help your family and co-workers understand that migraine isn’t just a headache: it’s a serious, yet treatable disease.
The Migraine Brain: Your Breakthrough Guide to Fewer Headaches, Better Health
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This book is very informative, helpful and easy to read. If you are subject to Migraines, you should read this book.
Rating: 5 / 5
The Migraine Brain: Your Breakthrough Guide to Fewer Headaches, Better Health
I think this book would be very useful for the person just figuring out they have migranes. I am 62 and have had migranes from age 12. There is alot of verygood advice and a lot of information about the mechanics of migrane tat I had never seen any place else. It is probably too late for me as my migranes have decreased in frequency over the years. If you want to learn more about migranes….read this book.
Rating: 4 / 5
The Migraine Brain: Your Breakthrough Guide to Fewer Headaches, Better Health
I had high hopes for The Migraine Brain after seeing Dr. Bernstein on the Today show. She talked about the brain of someone with migraines being different than others. This topic she does cover well in her book; Chapter 2, The Migraine Brain - How It’s Different and What That Means for You contains useful information I hadn’t read anywhere else before.
However, what was disappointing is that she states on pages 15-16 that migraine is a chronic illness, meaning you cannot get rid of it. Not only is this not true, many people have recovered from migraine, but on the dustcover of the book itself is a quote from Dr. Christiane Northrup where she refers to herself as a FORMER migraine sufferer. Dr. Northrup elaborates on this topic in the movie You Can Heal Your Life.
Another part of the book that could be considered inconsistent is in Chapter 5- Female Hormones and Migraines Through the Life Cycle. In this chapter Dr. Bernstein suggests periodic preventive meds when you “know” a migraine is expected during your monthly cycle. However in Chapter 9 on page 163 she asserts that preventive drugs only work if you take them every day.
I have been suffering with migraines for over 20 years now and taking the triptan Zomig for about 8 years, it works for me about 70% of the time. Dr. Bernstein states on page 174 that you must take a triptan as soon as you feel a migraine coming on in order for it to work. Not only is this NOT true, but for my daughter and I our migraines must be in full swing for the medication to work. So it would be safer to say that triptans work differently for different people.
Basically the only thing really new in this book is the chapter on the brain itself. Still not a bad book, but a few revisions could make it great book, as it is quite comprehensive.
Rating: 3 / 5
The Migraine Brain: Your Breakthrough Guide to Fewer Headaches, Better Health
Comprehensive, conversational, and packed with information, The Migraine Brain is the one book migraineurs (as we’re elegantly called) need to own. To understand my own malady, I’d read case studies, science articles, and the other best book out there, Breaking the Headache Cycle. Dr. Bernstein’s book addresses just about every trigger, treatment, and old wives’ tale as well as the new model of migraines as a neurological “storm.”
Her tone is balanced, advocating for both the holistic (exercise, routine, yoga) and medical (pills and preventatives). The reader can pick and choose what hits closest to home. Full disclosure, I am a patient of Dr. Bernstein’s and can say this book offers every good thing about her practice. As in this book, she is kind, practical, and really pays attention to her patients.
Migraines are often an invisible ailment, and to see their weird triggers (barometric pressure? sex?) and sensible treatments (which seldom involve avoiding chocolate) named so clearly in one reference book is a godsend. Highly recommended.
Rating: 5 / 5
The Migraine Brain: Your Breakthrough Guide to Fewer Headaches, Better Health
My 18 year old daughter has severe migraines. This book gave her a structure to explore her migraines and develop a plan for managing them throughout the duration of the headache. We both found the information contained in The Migraine Brain empowering.
Rating: 5 / 5
The Migraine Brain: Your Breakthrough Guide to Fewer Headaches, Better Health