Migraine
by Oliver Sacks
On This Page
Description
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 show more 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. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
There is something amusing about getting my first full-assault migraine in two months as I read Sacks's book Migraine. I suppose my brain wanted to sadistically illustrate the text--if so, grand job! This book is not an easy read, even when one can read with both eyes. There is heavy medical jargon. Even so, it proved to still be an informative work to skim, and I did pick up a few new terms to employ. Though the book is certainly out of date in relation to new medical interventions, it is still powerful because it presents a sort of literary history of the migraine going back to writers of ancient Greece. I was amazed to see how much I had in common with other sufferers--and how much worse my plight could be. (I was horrified that some show more people, when seeing visual distortions, in truth believed that chunks of their reality were gone.) show less
Sacks covers all aspects of the migraine experience in this book. near-exhaustive.
the science and scholarship are top-notch. he added an update to this edition covering recent advances in knowledge and treatment and modified his own prior statements, realizing he’d been wrong.
including the art was important. it allowed non-sufferers to get a glimpse into the experiences of having a migraine and show that migraines really are not all about pain.
he’s a good writer and does his best to talk with his audience but, in the end, it’s a clinical neuroscience book rather than a story even with all the case histories included. Hallucinations did a better job of marrying the scholarly delivery with storytelling. that’s a purely aesthetic show more assessment. making an encyclopedic book like this readable is an achievement. show less
the science and scholarship are top-notch. he added an update to this edition covering recent advances in knowledge and treatment and modified his own prior statements, realizing he’d been wrong.
including the art was important. it allowed non-sufferers to get a glimpse into the experiences of having a migraine and show that migraines really are not all about pain.
he’s a good writer and does his best to talk with his audience but, in the end, it’s a clinical neuroscience book rather than a story even with all the case histories included. Hallucinations did a better job of marrying the scholarly delivery with storytelling. that’s a purely aesthetic show more assessment. making an encyclopedic book like this readable is an achievement. show less
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.
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.
PORTUGUESE:
Para leigos: 3,5/5
Para profissionais da área, eu diria 4,5/5 ou 4,0/5, pelo fato de já estar um pouco velho (mas pouco obsoleto em vários aspectos).
Um livro bom para enxaquecosos que queiram conhecer mais a enxaqueca e a si mesmos. As partes IV e V possuem muitos trechos de difícil compreensão para o grande público (no caso, eu), mas ainda vale a pena dar uma olhada.
Não é um livro para quem procura a "cura" para a enxaqueca e também não é uma leitura fácil.
ENGLISH:
For the lay people: 3,5/5
For professionals in the area, I'd say 4,5/5 or 4,0/5, just because the book is a bit old right now (but not dated in many aspects).
A good book for migraineurs who want to know more about migraine and about themselves. Parts IV show more and V have a lot going on for the big public (me included), but it is still worth to take a look.
This isn't a book for someone looking for the "cure", nor is it an easy read either. show less
Para leigos: 3,5/5
Para profissionais da área, eu diria 4,5/5 ou 4,0/5, pelo fato de já estar um pouco velho (mas pouco obsoleto em vários aspectos).
Um livro bom para enxaquecosos que queiram conhecer mais a enxaqueca e a si mesmos. As partes IV e V possuem muitos trechos de difícil compreensão para o grande público (no caso, eu), mas ainda vale a pena dar uma olhada.
Não é um livro para quem procura a "cura" para a enxaqueca e também não é uma leitura fácil.
ENGLISH:
For the lay people: 3,5/5
For professionals in the area, I'd say 4,5/5 or 4,0/5, just because the book is a bit old right now (but not dated in many aspects).
A good book for migraineurs who want to know more about migraine and about themselves. Parts IV show more and V have a lot going on for the big public (me included), but it is still worth to take a look.
This isn't a book for someone looking for the "cure", nor is it an easy read either. show less
There are many good descriptions and ideas here. There are also many references to Freud (once in conjunction with Chomsky and Wittgenstein, oh halp). Worth it nonetheless, for personal reference.
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 show more had such difficulty pinpointing the cause. show less
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 show more had such difficulty pinpointing the cause. show less
Published in 1971, revised in 1991, in 2014 this technical in-depth treatment of the state of knowledge on migraines is terribly out of date. Perhaps it would be interesting as history of medicine or in a "Look what they thought in 1971!" kind of way.
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
Nonordinary States of Consciousness
184 works; 7 members
Books Read in 2022
5,164 works; 113 members
Books in the Bibliography of The Mind in the Cave by David Lewis-Williams
257 works; 1 member
Author Information
66+ Works 43,524 Members
Oliver Sacks was born in London, England on July 9, 1933. He received a medical degree from Queen's College, Oxford University and performed his internship at Middlesex Hospital in London and Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco. He completed his residency at UCLA. In 1965, he became a clinical neurologist to the Little Sisters of the Poor and show more Beth Abraham Hospital. His work in a Bronx charity hospital led him to write the book Awakenings in 1973. The book inspired a play by Harold Pinter and became a film starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams. His other works included An Anthropologist on Mars, The Mind's Eye, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Uncle Tungsten, Musicophilia, A Leg to Stand On, On the Move: A Life, and Gratitude. In 2007, he ended his 42-year relationship with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine to accept an interdisciplinary teaching position at Columbia. In 2012, he returned to the New York University School of Medicine as a professor of neurology. He died of cancer on August 30, 2015 at the age of 82. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Some Editions
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Work Relationships
Contains
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Emicrania
- Original title
- Migraine
- Original publication date
- 1985
- People/Characters
- Hildegard of Bingen; Aretaeus; Alexander Trallianus; Thomas Willis; Robert Whytt; Samuel-Auguste Tissot (show all 8); Edward Liveing; Georg Groddeck
- Epigraph
- Socrates, in Plato, would prescribe no Physick for Charmides' headache till first he had eased his troublesome mind; body and soul must be cured together, as head and eyes...
—Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy<... (show all)/i>
Whoever...sees in illness a vital expression of the organism, will no longer see it as an enemy. In the moment that I realise that the disease is a creation of the patient, it becomes for me the same sort of thing as his mann... (show all)er of walking, his mode of speech, his facial expression, the movements of his hands, the drawings he has made, the house he has built, the business he settled, or the way his thoughts go: a significant symbol of the powers that rule him, and that I try to influence when I deem it right.
—George Groddeck - Dedication
- In memory of my parents
- First words
- Our first problem arises from the word migraine, which implies the existence of a (hemicranial) headache as a defining characteristic.
- Quotations
- Freud reminds us that "...the ego is first and foremost a a body-ego...the mental projection of the surface of the body." The sense of "self" appears to be based, fundamentally, on a continuous inference from the stability of... (show all) body-image, the stability of outward perceptions, and the stability of time -perception. Feelings of ego-dissolution readily and promptly occur if there is serious disorder or instability of body-image, external perception, or time-perception, and all of these, as we have seen, may occur during the course of a migraine aura.
Among the strangest and most intense symptoms of migraine aura, and the most difficult of description or analysis, are the occurrence of feelings of sudden familiarity or certitude (déjà vu), or its opposite, feelings of su... (show all)dden strangeness and unfamiliarity (jamais vu). Such states are experience, momentarily and occasionally, by everyone; their occurrence in migraine auras (as in epileptic auras, psychoses, etc.) is marked by their overwhelming intensity and relatively long duration. These states are sometimes associated with a multitude of other feelings: the thought that time has stopped, or is mysteriously recapitulating itself; the feeling that one is dreaming, or momentarily transported to another world; feelings of intense nostalgia, in déjà vu, sometimes associated with an uprush of long-forgotten memories; feelings of clairvoyance, in déjà vu; or of the world or oneself being newly-minted, in jamais vu; and in all cases, the feeling that consciousness has been doubled. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)The answers must be found by the patient himself.
- Original language
- English
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, General Nonfiction, Science & Nature
- DDC/MDS
- 616.857 — Technology Medicine & health Diseases Diseases of nervous system and mental disorders Miscellaneous Megrim, sick headache
- LCC
- RC392 .S33 — Medicine Internal medicine Internal medicine Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry Neurology. Diseases of the nervous system
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 1,099
- Popularity
- 22,956
- Reviews
- 12
- Rating
- (3.70)
- Languages
- 12 — Catalan, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Portuguese (Portugal)
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 53
- ASINs
- 18