Robbins Headache Clinic Blog
Adolescent Refractory(Difficult to Treat)Headaches
I have a new article, on this homepage(upper left) on refractory(difficult to treat) headaches, a 10 year study using a unique "refractory scale". Refractory is difficult to manage or treat, headaches that do not respond easily to the usual meds. I would like to adapt...
Headache in Children and Adolescents
Headache is a common complaint among children and adolescents. The prevalence of migraine in those with headache varies by age and gender throughout childhood. Migraine begins earlier in boys than in girls, and until the age of seven, migraine occurs slightly more...
Bipolar, Migraine, and Inflammation
There is a new article just out on a theory: that bipolar and migraine both have, as an important component, inflammation: cytokines, part of the inflammatory process, are involved. They feel that possibly if we attack the inflammation we may help both conditions. I...
Headache and Caffeine
Whether in coffee, caffeine pills, or combination analgesics, it's important to limit your total caffeine intake. The maximum amount of daily caffeine varies from person to person, depending on sleep patterns, the presence of anxiety, and sensitivity to possible...
The Concept of Acceptance
Acceptance of the pain as an illness is a very important concept. There are actually scales that measure a person's degree of acceptance. The road to acceptance of a chronic illness can be littered with many wrong turns along the way, searches for instant cures. In...
How Patients View Their Headaches
Patients with chronic daily headache may view their situation in black and white terms; on a return visit to the doctor, they will state, "Well, I still have a daily headache." They need to accept that going from moderate or severe headaches (7 on a scale of 1-10) to...
How Forgetting Is Good For Your Brain
We all have that moment... trying to remember the name of the person we are talking to. It may be on the tip of our tongue, but we just can't recall it. Studies show that forgetting not only enables the brain to conserve energy, it also strengthens our short-term...
New Drugs For Migraine
We need newer preventives; ...none are all that close, unfortunately. Cambia is a powdered (mix in water) form of diclofenac (an nsaid, like ibuprofen), gets into the system pretty fast. Sumavel is a nice, needle free injection of sumatriptan (Imitrex), very fast and...
Refractory Headaches
Refractory headache basically is "what to do for difficult, frequent headaches when things have not easily worked". I started the Refractory Headache Section of the American Headache Society 11 years ago; we have spent a decade defining refractory headache(my new...
Habit Changes Can Make For A Better Day
Charles Duhigg, author of the new book "The Power of Habit" contends that patterns of daily routine can actually undermine what we consciously desire. Duhigg describes a "golden rule of habit change." For example, if an old routine is laying on the couch, watching TV...