5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Must Have for any Migraine Sufferer, November 6, 2006
This review is from: 10 Simple Solutions to Migraines: Recognize Triggers, Control Symptoms, and Reclaim Your Life (Paperback)
I have had a constant migraine for almost 5 years now, and I found this book to be very helpful. It helps you find and teaches you about your diagnosis. In addition, it teaches you how to identify migraine triggers and how to avoid them, and how to better take care of yourself. It also teaches you how to better communicate with your doctor. Even though I knew many of the facts in the book, I found it helpful in putting all of the information in one place, breaking down the information, and expanding on what I already knew.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The FIRST book for migraine, August 20, 2010
This review is from: 10 Simple Solutions to Migraines: Recognize Triggers, Control Symptoms, and Reclaim Your Life (Paperback)
Over the past couple years, I have been collecting books on migraine to see how they have changed since the 1970s. Aside from mentions of CTs and MRIs, and triptan drugs, NOT MUCH -- while rates of migraine are increasing.
I almost didn't buy this little book because it was so brief at 143 pages, but was astonished to find that it is one of the most useful and informative migraine resources available. It won the 2007 Excellence in Media Award from the National Headache Foundation.
It really does provide a clear and direct set of instructions to Recognize Triggers, Control Symptoms, and Reclaim Your Life. It ranges from diagnostic features to tracking of symptoms and triggers, treatment modalities and valuable information resources.
-Understand Your Migraine: Physiology and symptoms behind the pain.
-Get a Proper Diagnosis: on not confusing this with "sinus" and being aware of symptoms that suggest something far more dangerous and life-threatening than primary headache.
-Track Symptoms and Triggers: How to quantify, measure, and evaluate symptoms with headache diaries and more.
-Treat Acute Migraine Symptoms: a review of effective and IN-effective migraine drugs. For example, acetominophen is the most commonly used OTC drug. It is also the least effective.
-Medication and Nonmedication Therapies to Prevent Migraine: The rationale behind various treatments. What is really going on when your physician prescribes anti-depressants. No, he is not just dismissing the problem as "psychosomatic."
-Manage Stress: There's more to this than the "bubble-bath by candlelight" so often recommended (and never mind the triggers in bath products and scented candles!) Comments on time-management skills, progressive muscle relaxation, biofeedback and cognitive therapy. Yes, it really does work.
-Vitamin and Herbal Therapies: One highly rated book (funded by a drug company) dismisses years of research on electrolyte imbalances and magnesium (migraine / menstrual migraine as a deficiency disease and chemical imbalance that can be corrected for pennies a day) in favor of triptans (at $20-$50 per pill/injection). Why? Because "one study" showed that you must keep taking magnesium to have a lasting effect. Surely zillions more that show that!-- because magnesium is a critical macronutrient. Yes you must keep taking magnesium just as you must keep taking other vitamins and minerals . . . and water and air and more to live. Dr. Marcus provides a nice summary of magnesium research with dosing recommendations.
-Communicate Effectively: Take a list of specific questions, get specific answers. Don't just lie in the dark and suffer. Almost every chapter has one or more charts/surveys to identify and evaluate the problem. There is much critical data that only YOU, the patient can provide; here's how to help guide treatment by teaming effectively with your doctor.
There is a lot of migraine research that never gets out to the public. You'll find it in $60-$160+ medical textbooks on migraine and chronic pain. Dr. Marcus has authored some of those, with particular emphasis on women's issues. This is a deeply condensed presentation of that information, affordable, succinct and extremely useful. Start here.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Recommened Reading, September 7, 2009
This review is from: 10 Simple Solutions to Migraines: Recognize Triggers, Control Symptoms, and Reclaim Your Life (Paperback)
This book would be the first book to read if you can only afford to buy one book. Whether you are first learning about migraines, trying to decide you have them, or have had them for a long time, and are needing to make sense of all the information you have received.
I found this condensed my last 5 years of personal research into my migraines, into a well written, easy to understand, synopsis. It helps you understand what the doctors are trying to say to you. It gives you a way to communicate with the doctors so they understand what you are trying to say to them. It gives you tools you can use to accurately inform your doctor what is going on, and what you have tried. She gives you reliable sources of online and written information.
There are many good books on migraines but this would be my suggestion for a first read, or an up to 2009 update of where current migraine thinking/ research is.( My background being disabled, & in bed, for the last 2 1/2 years from unrelenting migraines. Now in the reclaiming my life- phase.)Best wishes to all who need this book, caregivers or those with migraines.
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