09.18.09
Posted in Biography at 1:28 am by Rosepixie
The backmatter in this book is great. I love the bibliography! It’s so extensive! I did wish that they notes had been better connected in the text, though. If there had been some kind of notation as to their connection throughout the book as I read (making them actual endnotes, for example) I would have been much more pleased with them. As it was, I didn’t even know that they existed until I got to the end, when they were no longer as useful to me. It was very disappointing.
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09.16.09
Posted in Biography at 2:47 am by Rosepixie
I’m not sure what to make of Levy’s attachment to his headaches and his decision to stop trying to prevent them. I guess that it just kind of baffles me to give up so completely like that. I mean, I can see deciding you’ve struck a livable balance which is better than returning the experimentation, but that’s not what he did. I don’t know, it just seems weird to me.
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09.15.09
Posted in Biography at 12:16 am by Rosepixie
Levy talks about comparing headaches and remedies at parties and goes into reasons why people are talking more about their migraines. He makes some interesting points. I wish that I knew more about some of what he talked about or referenced. This book could seriously used endnotes or something!
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09.10.09
Posted in Biography at 12:32 am by Rosepixie
It’s very interesting to read about the recent history of headache research. Given how surprisingly slowly medicine and prevailing attitudes in the medical community change, I’m not terribly surprised by how slowly attitudes about headaches and those who suffer from them are changing even though so much new research comes out all the time. I have some trouble understanding why there is so little funding for headache research and why insurance companies continue to treat headaches as not being serious enough to even really cover all of the time, but hopefully those things will get better over time as well.
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09.06.09
Posted in Biography at 1:34 am by Rosepixie
After a long musing on whether or not it’s fair to associate a medical condition with great art in case doing so diminishes the value of the artistic achievement, Levy then goes on at great length about how Freud’s entire theory of psychoanalysis could be traced back to his migraines. It felt a little weird.
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09.03.09
Posted in Biography at 1:34 am by Rosepixie
The quotes beginning chapters and sections of this book are often excellent. The discussion of migraine and religion was interesting. I’ve never particularly felt anything spiritual in my headache (or from it), so it’s not a connection I ever would have made. I’m finding this book to be quite interesting.
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09.01.09
Posted in Biography at 1:10 am by Rosepixie
There is a lot of really interesting stuff in this book, but a lot of the sections about his own life, his own migraines, are really boring. I think that it’s because he repeats himself a lot when talking about his own experiences. Even with new words, the same story is still the same story. Still, stripping it all out wouldn’t have worked. Maybe it was just this section and it will get better throughout the rest of the book.
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08.28.09
Posted in Biography at 12:18 am by Rosepixie
Levy is still bugging me by his apparent inability to recognize experiences that differ from his own as equally valid. He is right, though, that describing pain is extremely challenging. It always drives me crazy when doctors get annoyed at what they consider to be inadequate descriptions, considering how nearly impossible pain can be to describe!
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08.27.09
Posted in Biography at 12:00 am by Rosepixie
Levy has mentioned a number of historical figures who suffered from migraines or other types of headaches, but I’m pretty sure that he has yet to mention a women. He has also described many different headache cures that have been tried over the course of history. He does what I’ve found most writers of such things do, however, and dismisses out-of-hand anything he thinks seems silly or hasn’t worked for him. I hate this and find it disrespectful and frustrating. For example, he totally disregards using peppermint or lavender scent even though it’s worked for many people for a very long time (he sites it being recommended in 1861). He treats it as cute, but kind of silly and the impression is that it didn’t work for him, so obviously it won’t work for anyone. This seems stupid to me. Putting pressure on my head and sitting in the dark have never worked for me, but both are time-tested remedies that work for many people, so while I don’t do them, I’m not going to dismiss them out-of-hand either! Every headache and every headache sufferer is different, no experience is definitive or more real or more valid than any others.
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08.23.09
Posted in Biography at 6:55 am by Rosepixie
So far I’m interested. Levy’s writing is rather uneven in flow so it’s sometimes hard to stay engaged, but perhaps that’s just because this was the beginning and it will be better once I’m into the body of the book. He describes pain well. I’m interested in what he has found about the history of migraines. I’m hoping there are some good sources listed in the bibliography on that score as well.
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