All In My Head

Remember when I said I was slow to start reading Harry Potter because I was reading something else?  Paula Kamen’s incredible book, All In My Head was the tome keeping me distracted from the goings-on at Hogwarts.  All In My Head has continued to distract me since I finished reading it, as I want so badly to do it justice here that I’ve been worried about how to review it.  In short, it’s an amazing, valuable, irreplaceable first-person account of dealing with the medical establishment while trying to find a cure for a chronic headache.  Just like me, Paula Kamen came from a normal, happy family, and had a normal, happy life, until one day she was hit by a headache that never went away.  In my case I was hit with fibromyalgia, but as Kamen discovers on her path to “medical enlightenment”, most chronic conditions have something in common, and in fact, they might all be off-shoots of the same imbalance in the brain.  Kamen’s headache throws her life into turmoil, preventing her from working as a writer, and sending her to seek treatment from headache specialists to chiropractors to psychic healers, and everything in-between.  If you’ve ever wanted to know about alternative healing methods, you’ll find this book very revealing on just about every topic except Ayurvedic medicine (which Kamen avoids because of the excessive number of Ayurvedic methods which involve vomiting and/or enemas). 

Sadly, there’s no happy ending—Paula Kamen has spent tens of thousands of dollars and been to world-famous headache treatment centers, but she still has a headache which never goes away.  On the bright side, she’s discovered that a number of elements of all the different therapies she’s tried do provide a degree of relief, so she incorporates things like massage and aromatherapy into her daily routine of prescription medications.  It’s a good lesson for those of us dealing with difficult chronic health issues, that there may not be “one” answer, but perhaps many smaller partial answers which fit together to form a whole.  It’s an even better lesson to be reminded that we’re not alone, and that’s one of the reasons Kamen’s book had such an impact on me.  There are thousands of other “tired girls” out there, and we struggle to live normal lives and we blend in, all the while thinking we’re the only ones who are coping with such overwhelming pain and fatigue.

So, if you’re suffering from chronic headache, you may find that this book offers you some ideas and treatment options you hadn’t considered.  If you’re just suffering from chronic anything, I think you’ll find that the book gives you a bit of hope, and helps you feel less alone.  This book is an incredible gift from Paula Kamen to the rest of the tired girls, and I hope you’ll find comfort from it like I did.  Oh, and I don’t want to neglect to mention that the book is funny.  Even though it could easily be a downer of a book, it’s not, so it’s informative and good for a chuckle.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/03 at 10:30 PM

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