The Headache : The Science of a Most Confounding Affliction-and a Search for Relief

Tom Zeller Jr.

ISBN 10: 0358507758 / ISBN 13: 9780358507758

Published by Harper Collins Publ. USA Jul 2025, 2025

About this Item

Neuware - 'Required reading for anyone with a head.'-Mary Roach, New York Times bestselling author of Stiff and Fuzz'[The Headache] weaves together history, biology, a survey of current research, testimony from patients, and an agonizing account of Zeller's own suffering. . . If there's a lesson here, it's that pain resists mastery, but understanding, however incomplete, can offer its own form of relief.'-New YorkerFrom blinding migraines to severe headache disorders known as 'clusters,' chronic head pain affects 40% of the population, many of them suffering in silence. Finally, The Headache reveals the science behind a group of disorders that is as much a curse as a cultural punchline, and leads to key insights into the nature of pain itself.Guided by his own decades-long struggle with cluster headaches, veteran science journalist Tom Zeller Jr.'s journey into headache science is at once intimate and panoramic. He visits cutting-edge clinics; interviews dozens of doctors, neurologists, and fellow headache patients; participates in clinical trials for multi-million-dollar new medicines; and even experiments with psilocybin in search of relief. Along the way, Zeller traces the longer arc of mystery around headaches, from prehistoric skull surgery to Virginia Woolf's assertion that, in the throes of a migraine, 'language runs dry,' to reveal how headaches became one of the most under-researched afflictions in medicine-and how that is slowly starting to change.With warmth, wit, and infectious curiosity, Zeller's search for the origins of his own headaches becomes a journey into the inner workings of the human nervous system, and an invaluable witness to one of the most maligned conditions known to medicine.

Seller Inventory # 9780358507758

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Headache : The Science of a Most Confounding Affliction-and a Search for Relief
• Publisher: Harper Collins Publ. USA Jul 2025
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0358507758
• ISBN 13: 9780358507758
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 231W x 161H x 27D millimeters 231 millimeters width by 161 millimeters height by 27 millimeters depth
• Weight: 454 grams

About this title

Synopsis

"Required reading for anyone with a head."—Mary Roach, New York Times bestselling author of Stiff and Fuzz

"[The Headache] weaves together history, biology, a survey of current research, testimony from patients, and an agonizing account of Zeller’s own suffering. . . If there’s a lesson here, it’s that pain resists mastery, but understanding, however incomplete, can offer its own form of relief."—New Yorker

From blinding migraines to severe headache disorders known as “clusters,” chronic head pain affects 40% of the population, many of them suffering in silence. Finally, The Headache reveals the science behind a group of disorders that is as much a curse as a cultural punchline, and leads to key insights into the nature of pain itself.

Guided by his own decades-long struggle with cluster headaches, veteran science journalist Tom Zeller Jr.’s journey into headache science is at once intimate and panoramic. He visits cutting-edge clinics; interviews dozens of doctors, neurologists, and fellow headache patients; participates in clinical trials for multi-million-dollar new medicines; and even experiments with psilocybin in search of relief. 

Along the way, Zeller traces the longer arc of mystery around headaches, from prehistoric skull surgery to Virginia Woolf’s assertion that, in the throes of a migraine, “language runs dry,” to reveal how headaches became one of the most under-researched afflictions in medicine—and how that is slowly starting to change.

With warmth, wit, and infectious curiosity, Zeller’s search for the origins of his own headaches becomes a journey into the inner workings of the human nervous system, and an invaluable witness to one of the most maligned conditions known to medicine. 

About the Author

Tom Zeller Jr. is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Undark, a nonprofit digital magazine exploring the intersection of science and society. Previously, he was a reporter and columnist at the New York Times, an editor at large for National Geographic magazine, and a Knight Science Journalism fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He lives in Lolo, Montana. The Headache is his first book.