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223rd out of 709 books
—
721 voters
All in My Head: An Epic Quest to Cure an Unrelenting, Totally Unreasonable, and Only Slightly Enlightening Headache
by
Paula Kamen
At the age of twenty-four, Paula Kamen's life changed in an instant. While she was putting in her contacts, the left lens disturbed a constellation of nerves behind her eye. The pain was more piercing than that of any other headache she had ever experienced. More than a decade later, she still has a headache-the exact same headache. From surgery to a battery of Botox injec...more
Paperback, 368 pages
Published
March 14th 2006
by Da Capo Press
(first published 2005)
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A person like me, who researched her sore throat on WebMD and diagnosed herself immediately with throat cancer, who has occasionally even willed herself to have various illnesses all through the power of suggestion, should not read this book! But I read it and enjoyed it thoroughly. The writing is fantastic--clear, intelligent, witty, thoughtful, provocative. Kamen describes a 10+-year effort to find the cause and cure for a never-ending headache and while that may sound tedious, I couldn't put...more
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I picked this up because I didn't want to pay the price for the new hardback Atul Gawande book.
I don't get headaches, nor do I know anyone who does (or at least admits it to me) so I figured it would be good to try and see the affliction from a sufferer's perspective. I'm sure I will have a patient suffering migraine or cluster headaches eventually.
This woman is a hilarious wit...but I think this book would have been better off with 150 fewer pages.
The last 100 were a bear to get through. But...more
I don't get headaches, nor do I know anyone who does (or at least admits it to me) so I figured it would be good to try and see the affliction from a sufferer's perspective. I'm sure I will have a patient suffering migraine or cluster headaches eventually.
This woman is a hilarious wit...but I think this book would have been better off with 150 fewer pages.
The last 100 were a bear to get through. But...more
I read this because I am myself a sufferer of chronic daily headache -- since last October -- and like Paula Kamen I'm going through the whole cycle of trying different stuff that doesn't work, or works only for awhile, or removes the pain but turns me into a zombie, etc. I feel I learned a lot from this book -- among other things, I'm going to stop taking Neurontin now, and I'm going to try some of the non-medical remedies that provided some relief for Kamen. I'm still pretty skeptical of alter...more
Excellent story about chronic pain, esp for folks with migraines. This book is written from the author/patients perspective and experience as she goes through the multitudes of therapies people try for managing chronic pain.
In doing so she writes about the history of medical issues, the way the medical establishment discriminates against women and why they have done that historically. She also lays out the last 50 years of feminist theory and how that has affected women and their medical care.
I...more
In doing so she writes about the history of medical issues, the way the medical establishment discriminates against women and why they have done that historically. She also lays out the last 50 years of feminist theory and how that has affected women and their medical care.
I...more
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My sister said this includes a commentary about modern medicine in america, and I'm always interested in that, probably more than I should be. If nothing else, I'd like to know if and how the headache was fixed.
Journey through dealing with medical issues, unexpectedly funny, over the course of a decade + long headache, the author really does try everything, and is realistic but desperate. The idea of this awful lingering headache is difficult to think about, and I end up with a headache each time I read a section. Spoiler - there is no magical cure. The author introduces the idea of 'sick girls', women who have disproportionate occurances of pain, auto immune and other illnesses and get little or no he...more
This book is a memoir by Paula Kamen, a woman in her thirties who has suffered from a chronic headache since her early twenties. In this book, she chronicles the treatments she pursued in the quest to cure her headache, ranging from the traditional (painkillers, antidepressants, surgery) to the downright weird (craniosacral adjustments, guided visualization, strange diets) and everything inbetween (biofeedback, massage, chiropractic). Nothing cures her, although some things do seem to help a bit...more
I really enjoyed this memoir - a little bit of a slower read. The book is a memoir written by a journalist, Paula Kamen, who one day gets a headache. And it stays. For at least 15 years and counting. This is her chronicle of searching for a cure to her pain, and then her story of learning to accept that the pain may continue to be a constant. Along the way she delves into all sorts of research on Chronic Daily Headache, tries all sorts of conventional and non-conventional remedies, and begins in...more
I thought that her combination of personal memoir, with her insightful and witty perspective on both modern medicine and alternative medicine made for a really understandable and interesting book to read. Much of what she has to say resonated with things I had learned when I took my anthropology of reproduction class. The other thing I gained from her book is a greater understanding of what life with a chronic debilitating medical condition is like. Glad to have read this.
THE best book I have ever read on he subject. Accurate, funny, self deprecation at its best. Pity party and motivation kept to a minimum. An excellent balance. Reads like a fictional novel. Great paired with Laurie Notaro!!! As someone who has dealt with her own unrelenting and unreasonable headache for years, this book was written for me.
The subtitle of this book caught my eye--and is why I read it. Turns out this book was only as slightly enlightening as my headache is. Lots of the author's experiences mirrored mine, I just don't really blame the still present headache on gender issues (most people with daily chronic headache are women, and Paula says that's why no one bothers to find a cure) and the pharmaceutical companies (she calls Big Pharm) as much as she does. Some parts were funny, but lots of it was just okay to me.
As a migraine sufferer this was kind of entertaining but also a real eye-opener. Have I really taken lots of these drugs too....yes, and only been seriously addicted to one but that was enough.
It is brilliantly written and as with headache conventions that I have attended - makes me realise that I am pretty lucky.
It is brilliantly written and as with headache conventions that I have attended - makes me realise that I am pretty lucky.
As someone who's dealt with migraines for the past 20 years, I love reading books like this. (Next is Oliver Sacks' MIGRAINE.) It's nice to know someone else gets it. And selfishly, that everything could be way, way worse.
May 22, 2009
John
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
bio-and-memoir,
library_books
Author went for a two-fer in the same book: memoir + non-fiction, which didn't work well for me, serving to drag out the story; I'd bet those who read it looking for the science, disliked the memoir aspect.
i was all about this book until i realized how mundane it is to read your life experiences from someone else's perspective.
didn't make it through the first chapter.
didn't make it through the first chapter.
Jul 30, 2011
Ali
added it
This was a great book about migraines and the frustrations of coping with chronic pain.
Excellent, witty book about chronic pain & women's healthcare -- and she wrote it WHILE she had a continuous headache.
Love this--such a brave, funny book.
This book really goes into detail about the frustrations and challenges of chronic pain. After my own personal experiences with the medical system and back pain, I found myself amused and happy to find someone else had this experience. Plus as a woman it's important to understand the history going back to Freud in relation to medical views on women's chronic pain.
I learned so much about what my friend is going through, and that there are so many others like her out there dealing with chronic migraines. It was witty, quick, and a very interesting read. It touched on a lot of very personal topics related to the US healthcare system and western medicine in general.
This was so well-written and so complete - just excellent. Part of me wishes I'd read it before I wrote my thesis on gender and chronic invisible illness, but part of me is glad I didn't, because I might have involuntarily used Kamen's voice.
She presents an (sometimes) interesting account of her headaches/migraines and in the article I'm writing on illness narratives, it will function as a good footnote to a larger analysis on better illness narratives.
Useful if you can't stop beating yourself up for having issues your doctor can't figure out. Also contains a useful way of looking at and dealing with major fatigue issues and chronic pain.
a must-read for anyone with migraines and/or chronic headaches. so helpful!
Excellent book for the migraineur who has tried everything to get some relief.
May 13, 2013
Maddie Mcintyre
marked it as to-read
May 11, 2013
Ann
marked it as to-read
May 09, 2013
Mahdy151mohammad
marked it as to-read
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