Hey, it's Flora Lickman. You're listening to Science Friday.

Today in the podcast, headaches are so common, but how well do we understand them?

It's an invisible disorder. There's no biomarker. There's no test. There's no scan you can do that will prove that I have this thing. And so a lot of it is just a high

art of convincing someone.

If you've ever had a headache, and you probably have, you know it is not pleasant. But maybe

you pop some ibuprofen and it goes away. But for many people,

it's not so simple. A headache isn't just a one-off annoyance. It's an experience you organize your

life around. Because these headaches could last for days, they're so painful you can barely

withstand them, and they're largely untreatable.

That was the experience of my next guest who went on a reporting journey to solve his own headache disorder.

Tom Zeller Jr., editor-in-chief of Undark, and author of the new book, The Headache,

The Science of a Most Confounding Affliction, and a Search for Relief.

He's based in Montana.

Tom, welcome to Science Friday.

It's great to be here, Flora.

Thanks for having me.

Let's start with your personal story.

When did the headache start for you?

Yeah.

For me, they started in my early 20s, which is fairly typical for the flavor of headache that I get, the headache disorder I have,

which is called cluster headache, and sort of tormented me for the next roughly 30 years.

They are starting to dissipate as I get older, but it's been a journey.

...