Book Excerpts from
The Keeler Migraine Method

From the Introduction

“The son of Poseidon, Procrustus invited weary travelers to rest at his inn and then he broke their bones so that they would fit into a bed too small for them. Many doctors have a very "Procrustean" approach to headache treatment. They generate lists of foods that give some people headaches, asserting that avoiding those foods will prevent every patient's headaches.

They simply prescribe one drug after another, hoping one will work, and they try the same therapies in the same order, on patient after patient.

Sometimes these measures work, sometimes not, because, aside from the pain, my headaches are probably not exactly like yours. What works for me might not work for you, and vice versa.”

From Chapter One
“The fact is, anyone can get a migraine. Anyone. Even someone who “never” gets headaches will get a typical migraine when exposed to an environment that is hostile enough. For the lucky ones, it takes a powerful stimulus to produce a headache. These are the folks who get a rare migraine after camping for three days without sleep on the side of a sulfur-spewing volcano at twenty thousand feet. Others of us are much more sensitive. Never mind breathing sulfur for three days or hiking through a blistering-hot desert, we will get a migraine just walking past the perfume counter in a department store, spending an afternoon in the sun, or flying in an airplane at high altitude.”

From Chapter Four
“Life would be a lot easier for migraineurs (and their doctors) if the only things that triggered our headaches were okra, Jerry Springer, and bad rap music! Then we could simply avoid all of our triggers and never look back. Unfortunately, it doesn’t often work out that way.

Counseling patients to avoid things they love is hard. In fact, it is a little easier to tell a diabetic about the downside of sugar or a patient with sprue about the dangers of gluten than to tell a migraineur she can never eat nuts, cheeses, carbs, chocolate, red wine, Chinese food with MSG, meats with nitrites, and on and on. That’s pretty harsh. Moreover, it is not necessarily true, at least not for every migraineur. That is why I want my patients to get good evidence that something is one of their triggers before they give it up.”