Migraine

By Oliver Sacks

From the renowned neurologist and bestselling author of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat comes a fascinating investigation of the many manifestations of migraine, including the visual hallucinations and distortions of space, time, and body image which migraineurs can experience.

“So erudite, so gracefully written, that even those people fortunate enough never to have had a migraine in their lives should find it equally compelling.” —The New York Times

The many manifestations of migraine can vary dramatically from one patient to another, even within the same patient at different times. Among the most compelling and perplexing of these symptoms are the strange visual hallucinations and distortions of space, time, and body image which migraineurs sometimes experience. Portrayals of these uncanny states have found their way into many works of art, from the heavenly visions of Hildegard von Bingen to Alice in Wonderland. Dr. Oliver Sacks argues that migraine cannot be understood simply as an illness, but must be viewed as a complex condition with a unique role to play in each individual's life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: May 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9780307834102

Oliver Sacks

Oliver Sacks was born in 1933 in London and was educated at the Queen's College, Oxford. He completed his medical training at San Francisco's Mount Zion Hospital and at UCLA before moving to New York, where he soon encountered the patients whom he would write about in his book Awakenings. Dr Sacks spent almost fifty years working as a neurologist and wrote many books, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Musicophilia, and Hallucinations, about the strange neurological predicaments and conditions of his patients. The New York Times referred to him as 'the poet laureate of medicine', and over the years he received many awards, including honours from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Royal College of Physicians. In 2008, he was appointed Commander of the British Empire. His memoir, On the Move, was published shortly before his death in August 2015.

Reviews for Migraine

[steve_walker-348810 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The first,and best, book I have read on the matter of Migraine headaches.

[wester_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is Sacks' first book, and it shows. He still has to find his style. There are two problems with this book. The first one is a profusion of medical terminology (brachycardia, ptosis, myoclonus...). This is also a problem in Awakenings (his next book), but Awakenings doesn't suffer from the second problem: case histories instead of persons. In Awakenings and all later books, the person always shines through the case history. His other books are about how persons deal with (medical) afflictions, this book is about the migraine itself in the first place, and the persons who have the migraine are almost inconsequential.Only read this if you are very interested in migraine, or extremely interested in Oliver Sacks.

[kinnicchick · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

If you are looking for a book that defines migraine in an almost textbook like manner, citing case studies, historical data, and the like, this very comprehensive tome does that and more. This is an extremely thorough covering of migraine in all of its forms, severity and duration. Published in 1970 with revisions in 1985 and 1992, due to the updates in medications and other techniques in recent years (I'm thinking particularly of a heart surgery that has been utilized and also botox), it is definitely time for another update to be more complete. Despite this, I found it to be extremely helpful personally as someone who has suffered from migraines for over 25 years to see not only the type of migraines I was experiencing, but also why I had such difficulty pinpointing the cause.