Britt Talley Daniel MD literary website

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

The Mini Neurology Series: Volume 1: Migraine 


Migraine is a genetic, inherited condition involving the brain, the trigeminal nerve, and cranial blood vessels. Episodic migraine, defined as less than 15 headache days per month, consists of symptoms of headache with intervening periods of normal health. Chronic migraine is defined as migraine occurring 15 or more days a month. Most patients have episodic migraine while chronic migraine is usually due to overuse of acute therapy drugs and occurs in about 3 % of persons. Migraine is familial in occurrence and about 80% of patients who have migraine will have someone in their family with it. Migraine occurs in women about three times as often as men. The American Migraine study found that 20% of women have migraine, while 6% of men have it. Migraine is said to be the most common chronic disease affecting women. Migraine is also one of the most severely disabling diseases of the nervous system affecting health & fitness. The introduction of triptan medications in 1992 as injectable Imitrex (sumatriptan) and the later development of 6 other similar drugs has changed the practice of medicine and life on this planet for numerous patients for the better. Although I have published one of the largest medical neurology books available on the subject, entitled “Migraine,” in a world of big medical neurology books on headache and migraine there is a need for a smaller book on the subject. This is it! This Mini Neurology Series book on migraine is a short but complete 46-page book on the definition, the migraine lifestyle to live by to have fewer attacks, and the medical pharmacology and current therapy regarding acute and preventive therapy of migraine. It discusses the use of triptans and DHE for treatment. The book was written with the context of diagnoses from the International Classification of Headache as the backbone. It includes a short chapter on one of the most important subjects on migraine–medication overuse or rebound headache. There, you’ve got it, the first book in the Mini Neurology Series, on Migraine.