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Summary: Heal Your Headache: The1-2-3 Program for Taking Charge
Review: About a year ago I was using three Amerge a week and needing more. After I cut my head from passing out after vomiting from a headache occurrence, a friend lent me a copy of "Heal your Headaches" by Dr. David Buchholz. I skimmed thru the book. Called made an appointment with Dr. Buchholz, 7 months from the day I called. So, although I didn't think food caused my headaches, I gave up coffee, chocolate, tea and soft drinks. I was very sick for a few weeks. I cut down on the Amerge. The day of my appointment with Dr. Buchholz, was cancelled...he was on Good Morning America with a young mother patient. She talked about the diet and stopping the quick fixes. I revisited the book again. Started following the headache diet closely. By the time the appointment came I was down to maybe once a month using an Amerge. My own physician had prescribed preventive headache medicine, which I had been on the entire time. Dr. Buchholz listened was so intense to my story; explained the three step program; and made suggestions that r my physician could follow. I live near John Hopkins....You can help yourself without a doctor by getting this book and reading it. It has charts of the dietary triggers, potential sources of MSG; medication triggers; list of quick fixes that cause rebound; 4 acute treatments that do not cause rebound of mild to mild headaches; acute treatments of severe headaches; treatment of nausea and vomiting; migraine-prevention medications; preventive medications for cluster headaches. It is very easy reading and discusses many possibilities of non-migrate things. I find myself reading it in parts often. Dr. Buchholz said you do not have to eat like the "DIET" forever. He suggests following it for 4 months, and then introducing favorite things in quantity one at a time back in to your diet. Unfortunately, I feel better staying on the diet. It's pretty easy once you get started; meat and ice cream are okay. I haven't taken an Amerge since my appointment and have only taken 3 naproxen sodium in four months for moderate headaches. I have bought 10 copies of this book for myself and given them to friends who have headaches, and I'm not a big spender...get the book and read it. It has really changes things for me and I think it will really help you!
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Summary: 10 years of peace after 20 of pain; Best migraine program
Review: Heal Your Headache: The 1-2-3 Program for Taking Charge of Your Pain
by David Buchholz (Workman Publishing Company; 1st edition (August 15, 2002)
# ISBN: 0761125663 Incredible. The advice in this book changed the life of a three decade migraine sufferer who teaches medical ethics. I have sent copies to family, friends and colleagues. Finally, here is clinically based assistance, given by one of the best minds in the country. It combines theoretical acumen with that rare combination of an outstanding neurologist, compassionate clinician and incisive un-masker of snake-oil remedies. Here are constructive suggestions that work. You won't find Buchholz's name on aspirin bottles; he is on no one's payroll. But you will find him frequently quoted by Time Magazine, Newsweek, etc., as one of the country's foremost experts concerning headaches. In an era when so-called experts assumed the marketplace would be the magic pill that would cure the headache of our nation's healthcare, read about why marketing hype of short term headache relief is part of the problem. At a time when so many of us desperately clamor for relief that is believed only to be available from expensively inaccessible specialists, read about how a pro-active, well-tested common sense approach that puts you in charge of your headaches, delivers results you can trust. It works. As announced on the cover and repeated throughout the book, the golden nugget of advice is contrary to long held assumptions in many respects. Thus this advice is necessary; avoiding quick fix painkillers, which can cause rebound headaches; minimizing triggers like caffeine, perfumes, certain foods and stress and, for hardcore cases, using preventative medications such as tricyclic antidepressants, calcium channel blockers and others. How these work and fit into a comprehensive program are the genius of the book. This not cure but care; this is not miracle but management; thank you Dr. Buchholz for helping us see how and why we headache sufferers can take responsibility for at some part of what ails us. Are you tired of consuming headache medicines like they were candy? Learn about why you should be. This book is rare common sense for folks who want to know how live well and manage their headaches in an era when medical paternalism is a thing of the past ("doctor knows best") and a team approach to outcomes-based clinical care is welcome. Yet migraine is a phenomenon still misunderstood by those most important to us. Hence, to add to our misery, families and co-workers still remain too quickly dismissive of our "headache syndrome." Who among us has not travelled on the lonely and familiar pilgrimage of self-doubt, self-denial, self-medication, and a series of mistaken diagnoses ranging from ignorance ("bruxisms," "dental TMJ"), minimalizations ("get a lower-stress job"), under-trained pain management assessments ("you need more medicine") from assorted "health care professionals"? In contrast, here is advice to use, not diagnose, but to prevent and manage your headaches. Stop working against yourself. Stop foraging through more than 400 books in English dealing with migraines and headaches. Stop contemplating the exotic remedies of stars in glossy magazines (silly ex-lax purgatives and sweat lodges). Stop waking up with the dread of another painful day. Stop feeling like a self-inflicted invalid to your family and friends as well as a pain weasel to your doctor. Stop squinting at the rows of over-the-counter headache medicines, with their receding lines of temporary promises. Learn about all that can happen with self involvement in your own treatment from the best tour guide you will ever meet. Few have his keen ability to map the terrain, chart the territory, point out interesting sights, capably explain and practically apply contested theories about causes of headaches and migraines, as well as survey new classes of medicines (e.g. the vascular theory, the cortical spreading depression theory, the neurovascular hypothesis, the serotonergic abnormalities hypothesis, the integrated hypothesis). In short, don't even try sorting these out on your own. Let this clear and articulate author be your guide. This is the best health maintenance program for your migraine. Or suffer with headaches. The choice is yours. I have not been the same since I chose. This is the single best survival guide for headaches in an era that needs a physician as educator not patronizer, as enabler of health not pharmacist for acute care, as patient's partner, not the employer of insurance companies encouraged to see "headache sufferers" as incurably complaining and expensive "clients". Dr. William.Joseph Buckley
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Summary: This book saved me
Review: Before reading " Heal your headache" I had been suffering with migranes, on average two per day, for almost three years. General practitioners, neurologists, acupuncturists, bioenergetic doctors, and more gave me all sorts of wrong directions to explore. The suggestions that didn't make me worse simply didn't work. Then I came upon " Heal your headache". This book addressed every single simptom that I had been suffering with for the last three years. This book answered every question that I had been asking my doctors; and had never properly been explained. All my apparently mysterious medical problems were explained in this book. All the explanations are clearly written so that even I could understand them perfectly. This book not only explained clearly why I was having migranes, nausea, vertigo, and feeling overall tired, but it gave me all the information necessary to deal with these maladies. Furthermore it outlined all the stumbling blocks I would encounter on the way to healing myself and how to best prepare myself to overcome them. In other words it gave me all the answers to both questions I had been asking and questions I didnt even know I would soon be asking. After finishing this book I felt ready to follow the three-step program, and I promise you it works!
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Summary: Must Read for Anyone with Migraine Symptoms
Review: David Buchholz condenses approximately 40,000 hours of clinical practice with headache suffers at one of the best teaching hospitals in the world, Johns Hopkins Hospitals, into a book that can, in less that 40 hours, transform your life. This book is the best information available if you suffer from headaches and other related facial, eye, ear, and balance problems that keep you from enjoying your life. That is my own experience. It worked for me. It can work for you if you want to take control of your migraine symptoms. The book is not to be read once, but read again, and again, thought about, and studied. The book describes Buchholz's program for preventing migraine symptoms, but the process he describes is just as important for achieving results. That process discusses how to take control of your own treatment, working along side your treating physician rather than acting as the passive patient complaining of symptoms that the doctor is supposed to make go away. That is what took the time for me working with Dr. Buchholz's book. I had to teach myself a new way of interacting with my doctors where I took responsibility for my own symptoms and the outcomes of treatment.
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Summary: Finally Headache Relief!!!
Review: I would highly recommend this book to anyone who suffers with migraine headaches occasionally or constantly and to anyone who has a loved one that suffers with migraine headaches. I had headache discomfort ranging from irritating to excruciating everyday for four months. I saw my primary care doctor; his partner, several ER doctors and two neurologists and none of them could help very much in my constant struggle. After spending 3 ½ months on constant narcotics (the wrong thing to do) and 3 days in the hospital with little relief, I decided to take matters into my own hands. A friend of mine researched doctors specializing in migraine headaches and found Dr. Buchholz. Of course it is a six-month waiting list to get into his office and I decided to read his book in the meantime. I will admit, I read it with much skepticism. I figured I would follow his guidelines and then when I had my appointment I would say, "I followed this advice and it did not work. Now What?" Instead, I found that his 3-step program was just what I needed. 7 months later, I have very few headaches and they go away with simple Tylenol. I strongly recommend that the migraine sufferer and those close to them read this book and stick to its advice.
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Summary: It worked for me
Review: Add my name to the long list of reviewers for whom this book offered welcome relief. I have suffered migraines for over 50 years and am now virtually free. The method was not easy. First, you have to stop taking all pain medications that cause rebound headaches. That includes just about everything that you would have ever found useful. Once free of those, you then start working on your personal dietary triggers. For me, it turned out to be a lot of stuff I love. Finally, you find a medicine that raises your headache threshold. For me, it was a moderate dose of nortripaline. The process took four months and included a lot of pain, particularly as I went thru headaches without pain relievers. But it was worth it.
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Summary: So you want to get rid of your headaches
Review: This book is a must read for anyone who suffers from frequent headaches, even if they are relatively mild and have perhaps been diagnosed as "sinus" headaches, or severe headaches, the ones that most call migranes, or even the excruciating ones that this reader suffers periodically and are called cluster headache. The book is very well written in a smooth and easily understood style, the author, Dr David Buchholz, is a neurologist with the Johns Hopkins University Medical School, and is a people doctor who has devoted his practice exclusively to the diagnosis and treatment of headaches. He was indeed the first in a long string of doctors to correctly diagnose and successfully treat my headache condition. The book explains and offers a three-step program for healing your headache that involves avoiding certain over-the-counter drugs frequently taken for headache, especially decongestants and "sinus headache" preparations, avoiding certain foods that are headache triggers, and finally the use of certain drugs in the event that the first two steps are not quite enough. I highly recommend this book.
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Summary: Finally a book that provides real headache help
Review: This book is extraordinary. It outlines in simple, easy-to-follow, compelling language a program for conquering chronic migraines. After years of being told I had stress headaches or being treated inappropriately for migraines with a variety of medications, I was introduced to a treatment regimen that really works. It requires discipline, but that's easy once you understand the mechanism of migraine. The simple dietary modifications outlined in this book and the systematic process for implementing them have literally changed my life. I've gone from being controlled by headaches to having control of them. I've whole-heartedly recommended this book to a number of people -- I'm surprised how many people suffer from migraines. I only hope they'll read it and follow Dr. Buchholz's advice.
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Summary: It worked for my mom after over 30 years of other methods!!!
Review: I bought this book for my mom. It is an easy read and the solutions offered very easy to follow. All it takes is someone that is willing. She was very willing after having headaches all of her adult life with nothing that worked. She read it and began following the steps completely...six months later her headaches have dramatically improved! Our sincerest thanks to Dr. David Buchholz.
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Summary: Forget Atkins -- Migrainers Need a Buchholz Diet Revolution
Review: I first read this book and saw Dr. Buchholz six months ago. For the second time in three years, my migraines and associated symptoms of dizziness and nausea had become so bad that I hadn't been to work in weeks. I had tried everything, but seemed to suffer regular migraines no matter what I did. For years I had carried a pill fob of painkillers and abortive drugs with me everywhere I went, and felt entirely dependent on the meds (I didn't abuse them, but on a few occasions when I had needed them and didn't have them with me I had ended up in the emergency room getting shots of Toradol). You've heard this all before I am sure... it is six months into the diet and discontinuation of all drugs except a daily preventative, and I have had only 3 or 4 headaches in that time. I know longer carry those medications at all. This is not a fad diet for a quick fix, but an incredibly empowering approach for the long term that requires you to make tough changes. You have to forego abortive medications and make some pretty tough dietary changes. But it works 100x more than any other approach that I have tried -- it truly makes a difference.
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