Headache made fascinating, not frustrating

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Headache medicine is a rapidly growing subspecialty of neurology. This discipline is vast and varied, with many advances in the past two decades, and several monographs are available. So when you come across another headache book, the first thought that comes to your mind is “and how is this book going to be different from the others?” By use of a case-based approach that highlights dilemmas faced in practice, Newman and Levin have combined their years of clinical experience and hours of teaching expertise to bring out this excellent book that looks at headache from a practical viewpoint. The topics are well chosen, difficult and uncommon clinical presentations are included, ways to investigate headache are logically outlined, and the differential diagnosis is discussed in accordance with the second edition of the International Headache Society Classification of Headache Disorders. A total of 33 chapters are grouped under three headings to cover diagnostic dilemmas, treatment issues, and prognostic problems. In the section on diagnosis, the chapters on white-matter abnormalities visualised on imaging, giant-cell arteritis, carotid dissection, spontaneous intracranial hypotension, vasculitis headache, migrainous vertigo, and nummular headache are outstanding. In the section on treatment, many practice pearls can be picked up from the chapters that discuss headache in pregnancy, inpatient management, and problems with headache recurrence. The final section in this text includes topics that are generally skipped in other headache books, such as serotonin syndrome, school problems, transient global amnesia, and migraine with patent foramen ovale. The tables, key points, and carefully selected references at the end of each chapter are a unique feature of the text. This book thereby provides readers the opportunity for rapid revision or, by going through the listed references, detailed understanding about each topic. With so many underlying causes of headache, any pocket-sized book on the topic cannot be all inclusive. By way of suggestion, more tables and some flow charts would have been welcome. An introductory chapter on the pitfalls of headache history-taking and a concluding chapter highlighting recent advances, current controversies, and future directions in the headache specialty would have made the book more interesting. The contents of Headache and Facial Pain can best be summarised as distilled wisdom from two experts in the headache field who have seen it all. This book is strongly recommended for clinicians who regularly see patients with headache in their practice. The authors have shown that headache disorders need not always be frustrating; indeed they can even be fascinating when you know what to do and how to treat the next patient. Different headaches have different treatments, and that is what this book is all about.