A review by Dr. Michael Ready of Advanced Headache Therapy, written by Dr. Robbins was recently published in The Journal of Headache and Pain. Here are a few excerpts from Dr. Ready’s review….
Advanced Headache Therapy, is Dr. Robbins 4th headache book and it fully covers “standard” outpatient headache treatment. He discusses many non-pharmalogical concepts such as resilience, acceptance, and interventions that are beyond the “pill for every ill” mentality. Standard medications are extensively covered. However, the strength of this book is “what to do when nothing works”.
The author analyzes why patients fail usual treatment, and he delves deeply into the psychiatric comorbidities. He analyzes the effect of psychiatric conditions on headache treatment. There are lengthy sections on recognition of the bipolar spectrum, along with the various personality disorders. Anxiety and ADHD are thoroughly covered.
Complete guidelines for treating children and adolescents are presented. There is a fascinating case discussion of homebound adolescents. Another interesting case involves adolescents and “Mild Munchausens by Proxy”.
While refractory chronic migraine is the primary focus, cluster headache is also addressed. There are also interesting and practical cluster cases. Dr. Robbins weighs in on migraine surgery (he is negative on it). He also presents a compelling case for the use of opiates and butalbital containing medication is a subset of otherwise refractory patients. But most importantly (in my mind) he outlines how to determine which patients are likely to benefit from these medications.