Britt Talley Daniel MD literary website

Britt Talley Daniel MD is a retired neurologist and headache doctor.

Migraine 2nd Edition

Migraine is an enormous medical problem and the most common medical condition for women, affecting 20% of them. As a medical disease of the nervous system, it has great impact on the general health and fitness of many persons. Medical books on headache usually have a short chapter on migraine but this is a comprehensive neurology textbook written from an evidence based medical perspective structured around the International Classification of Headache. Acute therapy for migraine headaches is not usually pain medicine but specific drugs like the triptans or dihydroergotamine (DHE.) The medical pharmacology of migraine treatment is discussed in detail in this book. In medical school my anatomy teacher said, “Learn to read a big book,” and he was talking about Morris’ Anatomy which is still 4 inches thick. A recent published book on headache is 281 pages long and has a section on migraine that is 36 pages long. Migraine is a 343-page book solely on the subject of migraine with 841 references. There is scarcely any other book like it on the market. This neurology textbook has an extensive review of the literature on prevalent migraine subjects such as migraine without aura, migraine with aura, cluster headache, and medication overuse or rebound headache which are the core migraine interests, but it also covers rare migraine subjects such as the history of migraine, migrainous infarction, menstrual migraine, footballer’s migraine, primary headache associated with sexual activity, and confusional migraine. There are a number of teaching type patient dialogues between a patient and a doctor in the clinical chapters on migraine that would be instructive for patients, medical students, and neurology residents along with an up-to-date review of current therapy. The book has chapters on the migraine lifestyle, acute therapy, and preventive therapy. The historical section discusses many famous persons with migraine, such as Freud, Darwin, and Nietzsche. It is said that persons who have migraine like to read about migraine, so find a comfortable chair, put your feet up, and enjoy Migraine, a comprehensive neurology textbook on the subject.