The neurologist-sufferer perspective: "migraine tears me away from my life"

The aim of this paper is to present--from both a patient and neurologist perspective--the pattern of headaches over my lifetime. Migraine often does not remain static, but changes depending on internal and external stimuli. Thus, in my case, the pattern of headaches changed over the years from episodic, predominantly exertional occipital headaches with holocranial spread in late teens to chronic daily headache due to overuse of over-the-counter analgesics in young adulthood, and then to episodic migraine with occasional visual aura, and finally to menstrual migraine and frequent headaches during the perimenopausal years. Migraine sometimes provokes the development of several collateral comorbid disorders, such as mitral valve prolapse, often occurring in response to new environmental stimuli and worsening headaches. Finally, I present here my own experience with preventative therapy and how new effective abortive agents, such as the triptans, have dramatically improved my quality of life.