As a chronic headache sufferer for 25 years, I was ecstatic to read a story so close to mine in so many ways. Not that I was glad someone else had to live this way, but knowing that I wasn't alone lifted me up. Chronic pain can be very isolating even with support from family and friends. There are also feelings of guilt, weakness and limitation; of living a life limited by pain. Yet Paula puts a witty and humorous spin on the the whole experience. Not to be overlooked, the book is packed full of facts and resources. This is a must read for anyone dealing with chronic headaches.

This book absolutely amazed me. I thought I was alone until I read my entire history of headache. Don't miss it if you've been struggling with chronic pain. Told with a sense of humor which makes a difficult topic a more enjoyable read. No self pity here!

Hi Paula,

I just finished your remarkable book, All In my Head. Thank you, thank you, thank you a zillion times for writing it. Pretty much everything you describe: your daily experience living with constant head, face, neck pain and your exhaustive (and exhausting) trials with doctors and quacks, endless experimentation with alternative medicine, every neurological drug known to mankind, the odd effectiveness of pseudoephedrine, running smack into the blame game . . . all of it, I've also lived with for the past 33 years. Yet somehow, functioning despite it all.

Your book jolted me, like seeing myself in the mirror and not expecting to. I found your words enormously comforting and soothing, seeing my life mirrored so eerily has been a magical balm for feeling isolated.

I loved your analogy about having a finite number of marbles everyday and having to "pay" with them. I could not have described it better.

You are a gifted writer--it can't be easy to pack so much humor in a topic that's so bleak.

Your work touched my heart and the planet is a better place for having you in it.

Thank you again, for putting one deliberate step in front of the other, one day at a time, which is what it surely must have taken for you to write a book of this magnitude. (I can identify because it was the "one step at a time" method that got me through high school, college, and grad school).

With Warmest Regards and Bushels of Gratitude,

Ranjan

p.s. The best way I know of to thank you as an author, is to buy your book, which I'm promptly about to do through Amazon! :-)

As a sufferer of CDH this book was amazing: firstly, it let me know I'm not alone and secondly it put my feelings, frustrations, worries, guilt's, irrational thoughts and fears etc onto paper so that I can now, through Paulas' words try and at least explain how my life is to others.

I have given this book to my parents and friends to read so they'll have a much better understanding of what it is a go through every day in my head. They've all read it and suddenly now when I say I have a headache, rather than the blank, really? looks I used to get, I now get concern and most importantly, understanding.

Thank You Paula, I reserved some marbles especially for you :-)

I would recommend this book for
1. Anyone who has chronic pain (or other chronic symptoms such as fatigue).
2. People who know people in chronic pain.
3. Anyone who wants to understand what it is like to suffer chronic pain.
4. Anyone who thinks we should "buck up and get over it".

Besides being helpful I found it very easy to read.

My daughter has suffered with chronic daily headaches for 2 years. It has been unbearable to watch her in unrelenting pain. Paula Kamen's book mirrors a lot of our own experiences. But, she offers so much insight into accepting (not resigning) one's situation. It is refreshing because I realized that my daughter wasn't alone and there is a biological reason (or at least theory) for her pain. And Paula's humor lightened this mom's heart.

I enjoyed, for the most part, Paula Kamen's book, because as a back pain sufferer, I found her insights on medical health care to be very on target. I want to send a copy to every doctor. I especially like her insights about doctors' inability to just say "I don't know what's wrong", instead of defending their profession with vague gibberish, and blaming the patient when "their" cures don't work. I did take away one star because I did feel that it was a bit too long, and as an African American female, I did take issue with her statement about only being attractive to black males when she gained weight. That skinny girl thing, definitely a white thing. Maybe, Paula, you should talk to your white brethren, and tell them to get over it instead of feeling like a second class citizen just because you have curves.

Paula Kamen has had the same headache for fifteen years. While some other reviewers seem to think that she has spent too much time in this book writing about her multitude of doctors' appointments and that she has given up on some treatments too easily, my feeling is unless you've walked in her shoes, you are in no position to judge. I have had the same headache every single second of every single day for two years, and my doctors tell me that there is no end in sight. Paula Kamen puts words to the feelings that I haven't been able to voice. Her journey, like mine, for a cure has been difficult and, at times, overwhelming, and her book could be my story. If you are struggling with a chronic daily headache or a transformed migraine, this is the book you want to read. In fact, this is the book you want your doctors and the people around you to read. You won't feel better after reading this book, but you will feel a lot less alone. Thank you, Paula Kamen, for giving a voice to those of us struggling with chronic migraines.

Paula Kamen has had the same headache for fifteen years. While some other reviewers seem to think that she has spent too much time in this book writing about her multitude of doctors' appointments and that she has given up on some treatments too easily, my feeling is unless you've walked in her shoes, you are in no position to judge. I have had the same headache every single second of every single day for two years, and my doctors tell me that there is no end in sight. Paula Kamen puts words to the feelings that I haven't been able to voice. Her journey, like mine, for a cure has been difficult and, at times, overwhelming, and her book could be my story. If you are struggling with a chronic daily headache or a transformed migraine, this is the book you want to read. In fact, this is the book you want your doctors and the people around you to read. You won't feel better after reading this book, but you will feel a lot less alone. Thank you, Paula Kamen, for giving a voice to those of us struggling with chronic migraines.

I loved this book so much that I e-mailed the author right away to thank her for writing it. For me it was like reading a book that was written about my own headache journey and all the emotions and fruitless efforts that go with it. Paula Kamen is so insightful, funny and brilliant. Her observations on dealing with chronic pain not only made me laugh out loud many times, but validated so much uncertainty and fear any pain patient struggles with. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

I loved this book so much that I e-mailed the author right away to thank her for writing it. For me it was like reading a book that was written about my own headache journey and all the emotions and fruitless efforts that go with it. Paula Kamen is so insightful, funny and brilliant. Her observations on dealing with chronic pain not only made me laugh out loud many times, but validated so much uncertainty and fear any pain patient struggles with. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Paula Kamen was twenty-four when a contact lens insertion ignited an intense pain: over ten years later she still has the exact same headache. All In My Head: An Epic Quest To Cure An Unrelenting, Totally Unreasonable And Only Slightly Enlightening Headache is a memoir of medical hell, recounting ineffective remedies, medical frustration, and the problem of chronic pain sufferers. Included in her medical journey are interviews with over a dozen other sufferers of chronicle pain. 'Chronic Daily Headache' is a neurological disorder that affects only four or five percent of the population but its story hasn't been told before. Sufferers will find plenty to learn from here.

Paula Kamen was twenty-four when a contact lens insertion ignited an intense pain: over ten years later she still has the exact same headache. All In My Head: An Epic Quest To Cure An Unrelenting, Totally Unreasonable And Only Slightly Enlightening Headache is a memoir of medical hell, recounting ineffective remedies, medical frustration, and the problem of chronic pain sufferers. Included in her medical journey are interviews with over a dozen other sufferers of chronicle pain. 'Chronic Daily Headache' is a neurological disorder that affects only four or five percent of the population but its story hasn't been told before. Sufferers will find plenty to learn from here.

A friend of mine is a nurse working in a chronic pain ward in a major hospital. They get the cases where conventional doctors have given up. The patients typically have been through the ringer that Ms. Kamen describes, but often with a dependency on hard drugs as well. As Ms. Kamen says Western medicine has a strong tendency to depend on drugs over anything else.

Ms. Kamen tells her story with wit, with honesty, and with a way of conveying information that I've never seen before. This book should be in every doctors office for the thankfully few that will need it. Those few, however, will need it very badly.

I am not a chronic headache or pain sufferer, although I know some people who are, so this book may not have meant as much to me as it would to those who do suffer with chronic pain. Nevertheless, I felt I learned a lot from my reading of it, and I could relate to many of the author's experiences with the medical world. I also enjoyed reading about various alternative medicine types that I will probably never try, but have been curious about! The book is well researched and well written.

However, I feel this could probably have been about half as long and still have been effective. At times I felt like I didn't need quite as many details about almost each and every appointment. I also someone expected the book to me a bit more of a memoir. I would have liked to hear more about the author's life in general, not just the bits and pieces here and there included. She is an interesting woman and I think others would be interested in more than just her medical life.

Overall, a good contribution to the field of medical memoirs.

I laughed out loud as I read excerpts from Paula Kamen's often amusing memoir detailing experiences with a painful, "invisible" condition. This book should be required reading for all medical health and counseling profesionals.

Paula's experiences of the inadequacy of Western-style medical treatment were identical to mine.

After 38 years of excellent health, I gradually developed a severe, painful repetitive strain injury in the neck/shoulder region due to long-time computer use.

When diagnostic testing fails to reveal any significant problem, health professionals are often unable to resist attributing the unexplained pain to mental causes.

Who could imagine that highly qualified professionals
trained in the "scientific" method would rely on something so speculative as occasional anxiety as the cause of an injury?

Like Paula, I realized that medical science has not yet figured out a solution for certain painful conditions, and that certain complimentary therapies can provide at lest temporary relief. Make sure, though, that you find well-recommended individuals since non-Western medical industry is unregulated.

Paula Kamen has written three books in one: 1) a memoir of her own struggle with a (!) 15-year headache; 2) a social critique on the past and present treatment in our culture of chronic pain, especially in women; 3) an analysis of the latest findings on headaches and chronic pain as a neurological disorder.

It's the memoir, of course, that ties it all together in unbelievably light-hearted fashion. As I tell people about this book (which I do all the time), I see them start to shrink from the idea of a book about a 15-year headache. I know, it sounds brutal, but it is SO FUNNY Kamen has a self-effacing wit and a keen sense of the ridiculous that make her a great storyteller and a sympathetic protagonist.

The social critique and current analysis of research are what give the book its heft and credibility. Kamen has done extensive research and has managed to place her own story in the context of a fascinating tale of doctors, patients, researchers, and onlookers. She's got a wonderful ability to synthesize complicated material while telling a great yarn.

As one who has watched my mother struggle with headaches for years and who is now learning to negotiate my own chronic pain (of varying kinds), I really appreciated the generosity and energy (and wit) with which Kamen shared her own experiences. And her writings about the latest research on chronic pain were personally very helpful for me in my own thoughts about and management of pain.

Honestly, I don't know that I would have believed a book about an endless headache would be such a page-turner, but I couldn't put it down. And I laughed out loud, often (the other people on the train must have wondered what was going on. And the fact that she wrote this in the face of daily pain, well, it's just amazing. She's a hero.

Anyone with a personal or professional interest in chronic pain must must MUST read this book. I think it would be particularly helpful for health care providers who focus on one aspect or another of chronic pain. Because of course it is a multi-faceted disorder and I do think that this book reminds us about the forest over all those darn trees.

I, too, am a "tired girl," suffering from some atypical facial pain -- which means doctors can't figure it out -- for almost two years. It was great to read Kamen's book becuase she voiced so many of the same feelings I've experienced since the pain began: Hurt and disappointed when loved ones and friends suggested the pain was stress related or psychosomatic; angry and sad when people couldn't understand why I had to cancel or reschedule or needed more flexibility; and, most important, the hopelessness and despair of being sick for so long and giving up rather enjoyable parts of my life because of the pain.

Some have criticized Kamen for not giving some medical treatments enough time to work. When in constant pain, it's difficult to invest too much time when the side effects add more pain or cause other troubling issues. Taking a few weeks alone for something to work is a lifetime to a chronic pain sufferer.

Kamen does a thorough job of providing details about her medical background and exploring the stigma attached to migraine sufferers and others afflicted with chronic pain. And kudos to Kamen for fighting the pain and coming to peace with it as well as sharing her journey with us!

Ms. Kamen's book brought together the essentials and should be a part of the migraineur or headache sufferer's personal library. She carefully documents the reality as to the state of medical understanding and care available to the migraine sufferer, particularly the understanding/care available to those who are "outliers" statistically--those who are not helped by either their family physican or local neurologist.

Ms. Kamen provides the reader with essential understanding of one who has "been there" and is currently living with a condition that is disabling, but with limited outward signs to the average person. Her writing also points out the lengths and expense a headache sufferer will go to financially/ personally to attempt decrease or eliminate pain so they can support themselves and be a part of normal day-today life. Her writing vividly demonstrates the efficacy rates(or lack of) for current chronic headache and migraine treatments (where medication typically helps less than 50% of those who are compliant).

She also accurately describes an illness that is exacerbated by the slightest variation in the individual's environment or internal mileau (things as diverse as weather changes of the consumption of an offending food) much of which the migraine or headache sufferer has little or no control over. She points out ever so clearly that those who have more time, health insurance, and financial resources have access to more, but not always, effective and better care.
She discusses the variety of lifestyle changes and treatment a chronic headache patient will eventually personal adhere to and sometimes endure in an attempt to reduce the impact of the illness on life and daily living.

As a chronic migraineur, I feel less silly knowing that there has been at least one other well educated person like me who has pursued both evidence-based and "non-evidenced" based medicine alike, and at times treatment that was completely unscientific in it's grounding in an attempt to control pain enough to carry on with just the daily aspects of life. This book is a caution to those who try going down that road, that for the most part, an empty purse will be all that changes in your life. One thing I was unsure of was Ms. Kamen's compliance record with some treatment plans---at times I felt she gave up on some treatments without a fair trial, but even then I could understand the frustration she felt as she ventured, like most chronic sufferes, with a lot of dead-end roads.

As a feminist and I agree with much of what Ms. Kamen writes, but must take issue with downgrading of the opinions of such notable neurologists as Oliver Sacks. Like Ms. Kamen, I am distressed by Dr.Sacks' patroninizing style where women are concerned, but try to remember that at the time of his writing of "Migraine", those views were very much "in fashion" with medical thinking of that era (1950s-60s)and agree that they can still be found today. I think Sacks' book is still one of the best in modern times in terms of diagnosis and the documenting of the existential experience of migraine and other headache. That Sack's often reached the wrong conclusion as to cause (and definitely as to treatment) , the information and documentation he has provided the medical and lay community as to the experience of migraine and headache in general, continues to be highly valuable and must be viewed in within the context of the times in which it was written.

Ms. Kamen is at her best when she explores the ways daily headache defines and shapes the individual and their outlook on living. Her personal example shows that daily headache does not have to "define" the individual as a person and is positive in showing and encouraging fellow sufferers and their families that the headache sufferer is not to be thought of as a "patient" who is only a mass of pain and deficits. She shows that people with headaches have hopes, dreams and ambitions and the capacity to continue to be active participants in their lives and their communities once the headache sufferer realizes that their life will need to be approached with as much flexibility as is possible.

As a person living with chronic pain, I had big hopes for this book. I wanted it to tell what it is like for us to navigate the medical system, what it feels like to try and fail. What kept annoying me, though, was the author's purported "trying" of all of these methods--mainly medications--that she dismissed as unacceptable after a few days, or even less time. This sends the wrong message to people who are still trying to find the right medication (or treatment)--it sort of falls under that American quest for the Easy Cure--one without side-effect or consequence or inconvenience. If I had given up on my meds based on their initial side-effects, I don't know where I'd be today! Among other things, I suffered deep sedation, drooling, virtual mental retardation, nausea, sleeplessness, etc...but all of these things were transient. NOT transient in a few days or a week, but after a month or two. I can sort of understand a physician's frustration with a patient who is unwilling to give treatments a real try--my pain physician made it crystal clear that he expected that of me, and that there would be no easy road.
That all being said, the best part of the book was the last two chapters, about learning to accept the pain into your life--because inevitably, thats what we all need to learn how to do (there are no miracle cures to chronic pain). I found the end of the book the most helpful and positive.

This is a great book -- an amazingly humorous read, which is astounding given the subject and the torture the author must go through on a daily basis. I do not have headaches, but I have lived in chronic pain for a long time, so this definitely touched me. What's great about it is it is from the patient's perspective, not a clinical book, not by a medical professional, so you really feel you're in the patient's skin and going through what she is going through. I highly recommend this to many people, not only people in chronic pain, but also medical professionals (specifically who treat people in pain), people who live with someone in chronic pain, actually everyone!

Kamen has written a well-researched and very timely book on chronic head pain, the medical and alternative approach to treating it, and societal reaction to its existence. Anyone with chronic pain or who knows someone with it should read this book.

Paula Kamen has an entertaining style of writing that puts a humourous, laugh at yourself, kind of spin on dealing with chronic pain. I found it comforting to find someone writing about the kind of pain I suffer with daily.

However, I was disappointed that most of the treatments the author sought out were usually quite outlandish and were mostly things I would not have given a second thought to consider. Unlike the author, I have been able to find a measure of help through traditional medical treatments due to finding a good doctor. I feel that the author did not search thoroughly enough to find a competent doctor and therefore does not give an accurate picture of conventional medical options.

Bottom line, if you buy this book for entertainment and for the support of someone who feels like you, then I think you will like it. If you are looking for good critique and/or suggestions on different medical treatments available, I don't think this is the right book for you.