Ouch!

Like most people I have made use of the tactical headache when I wanted to get out of something. "I'm sorry," I've said, "I can't" do/attend XYZ because of a headache. I don't do it now. I'd like to think this is because maturity has made me a better person but what it has really made me is better at saying "no."

I get perhaps three or four headaches a year. They are always related to tiredness, or stress, or being dehydrated. They can be treated with over the counter pain relief and cured with sleep, relaxation or water. After doing Friday's show, I can't tell you how lucky I feel.

Our main guest was Paula Kamen, on the line from Chicago. One day in 1991, while putting in a contact lens, she got a sharp pain that seemed to begin behind her left eye and go back into her brain. She still has it. Every single day, for the last 17 years, she's had a pig of a headache. Sometimes it's been so bad she couldn't do anything at all - so it's had a massive effect on her. Paula's tried - well, everything you can imagine short of beating her head against a wall. Despite this she is funny and insightful about not just her Headache (it's capitalized) but other people's too. A couple of years ago, she wrote a terrific book which is a mixture of memoir, black humour and science journalism.

Unsurprisingly, when I told Life Matters listeners what we were talking about, the switchboard lit up like a Christmas tree. Those who couldn't get through went to the guestbook. There's clearly a lot more to be said about pain, which as a subject of scientific inquiry is still in its infancy.