The Migraine Brain
Page 37
In my opinion, we have met almost all of these needs and requests. The Women’s Headache Center on the Cambridge Health Alliance Somerville campus opened in April 2006. When you walk into the center, you enter a deep blue room, with pale blue carpet and blond wood chairs with curved backs, designed like beach chairs but sized for women. There are three soothing photographs on the wall that show sand dunes on Martha’s Vineyard, taken by a local photographer. You’ll hear either new age music or Mozart on our sound system, softly playing. At the front desk, you’ll be greeted warmly by our wonderful receptionist. Our headache nurse is an expert in chronic pain, and she does the initial intakes before either I or the other headache doctor comes in, to make sure we have a full and comprehensive history of your headaches.
Onsite, we offer nutrition counseling, psychiatry, biofeedback, and headache support groups. Soon we will add onsite yoga and meditation sessions, and migraine workshops. At your first appointment, we spend about forty-five minutes gathering from you a complete history of your migraine. Most important, we listen as you tell your migraine story, so we understand your individual needs and can help you create your own treatment plan. When you leave our office, you take with you a written plan on how to treat your migraine, along with contact information and an appointment for a follow-up visit. We send a letter to your primary care physician describing your visit with us and your treatment plan.
If any of our patients gets an acute migraine attack that doesn’t respond to their normal treatment, we tell them to come into the center immediately. When they arrive, the nurse gives them an ice pack to place on their head or face while they wait to see me or the other neurologist on staff. We try to see them as quickly as possible, and we’ve found that the other patients, who are there for regular appointments, are supportive and don’t mind waiting a little bit so we can see the patient who is in acute pain. They all know what it feels like to need immediate relief.
The satisfaction surveys of our patients are consistently excellent, and I truly believe the reason is that we are delivering patient-centered care, where we put the patient first. How better to create patient-centered care than to ask the patients—before the center was even designed—what they need and want.
You may not have access to a dedicated headache center for women in your community, but you can lobby for some of the things we provide at the place where you receive care. I wish you all the best on the way to wellness.
Other Migraine Resources
There are many other resources for migraineurs throughout the world, including a wide variety of online resources. Among those that are the most helpful and reliable are:
The National Headache Foundation—An organization for headache patients, their families, and physicians, it offers a wide variety of information and resources: www.headaches.org
The American Headache Society—Founded in 1959, this is an organization of health care providers who treat or are interested in the treatment of migraines and other headaches. It provides information to patients, too: www.americanheadachesociety.org The American Council for Headache Education (ACHE) is another name for the American Headache Society, and uses this url: www.achenet.org
MAGNUM, the National Migraine Association—Founded in 1993 by a migraineur, M.A.G.N.U.M. is a non-profit public information and advocacy organization that offers a wide variety of resources and information, and is also a community for migraineurs: http://www.migraines.org
CenterWatch Clinical Trials Listing Service—Provides a wide variety of information about clinical research including current clinical trials for all new drugs (not just migraine drugs), including those looking for patients to volunteer in clinical trials. It also tells you about new treatments approved by the FDA: www.centerwatch.com
Our migraine blog: Our website, migrainebrain.com, has my blog.
There are also many other bloggers who talk about their migraine. They’re easy to find by Googling “migraine blog.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are many people we’d like to thank for their generosity of time and spirit in helping us with this book.
First, we again want to thank the many migraineurs who talked with us about their experiences. We wish you health.
We also thank our agents, Lane Zachary and Joanne Wyckoff, who believed in this project from the start, and our wonderful editor at Free Press, Leslie Meredith, all of whom guided us with enthusiasm and humor.
A number of our family and friends were extremely generous with their time, practical assistance, and encouragement, especially Michelle Bates Deakin, Marge Bernstein, Jake Halpern, Lois Shea, Katie McArdle Rodriguez, Leora Herrmann, Ethan Thomas, Christine Markowski, Dr. Chris Mott, and Reni Gertner.
We’d like to thank the medical professionals who read over all or parts of this book and offered helpful suggestions for accuracy and comprehensiveness, including David Biondi, D.O., Christopher Bullock, M.D., David Hirsh, M.D., and Erica Swegler, M.D.
For sharing their expertise on various aspects of migraine treatment, we’d like to thank the professionals who work at the Women’s Headache Center, especially Margaret Ross, M.D., Kathy Kommit, M.S.W, Mara Sansevero, R.D., Connie Marques, Denise Lunn, R.N., and Michelle Masi, R.D., as well as Joseph Kaye. We also want to thank Linda Borodkin and Brenda Parisi for making the Women’s Headache Center a reality, Joanne Colman and everyone at the Cambridge Health Alliance who supported us.
Finally, but most important, we’d like to thank our families for their unflagging support and love: Chris and Jemma, and Jack, Cliff, Cameron, Peter, and Samantha.