So headaches can literally derail your life. And sadly, I'm speaking from personal experience.

They have been a part of my life since I was a teen, at times making it hard to function.

And I'm not alone. For billions of people worldwide, headaches aren't just an inconvenience.

They're an invisible force that can completely derail you without warning.

What's fascinating is that until 2018, we didn't actually have a single medication

specifically designed to prevent them.

I mean, how is that even possible?

Turns out there's a lot that we don't know and a lot of things that we are learning.

So what if everything you thought you knew about headaches was wrong even?

That's where we're headed today.

My guest, Tom Zeller Jr. is a former New York Times journalist, current editor-in-chief of the

Digital Science magazine on Dark, and the author of The Headache, The Science of a Most Confounding

Affliction, and a search for relief. Tom brings both personal experience and investigative

rigor to this

exploration of headaches, weaving together cutting-edge neuroscience, cultural history, and his own

journey with cluster headaches, which are considered among the most intensely painful conditions

human can experience. And what we uncover in this conversation, it might surprise you,

from the complete absence of

specifically designed preventative medications until just a few years ago, to the profound

gender bias that has shaped treatment throughout history, we explore emerging frontiers in treatment,

from AI-powered early morning systems to devices, to pharma, to psychedelic therapies, and examine why the simple

word headache may actually be holding back both research and understanding. So whether you

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