For thousands of Americans, headache and migraine pain is a serious drain on productivity and quality of life. According to a recent national survey by Louis Harris & Associates, nearly 75 percent of all Americans age 18 and over suffer one or more headaches per year; more than 40 percent have six or more in the same period.

The economic consequences are staggering. The Harris survey estimated that adults with full-time jobs lost nearly 157 million workdays due to headache pain. And that doesn't begin to count the personal costs of interrupted sleep, upset daily routines and spoiled leisure time.

Successfully alleviating these problems and returning patients to a stabilized lifestyle are the reasons for the Diamond Headache Clinic program. In 1972, pioneering Dr. Seymour Diamond decided to limit his practice to the diagnosis and management of headache disorders. Dr. Diamond had been treating headache patients since the early 1960s. The Diamond Headache Clinic was the first comprehensive, private headache clinic in the world. In 1980, we expanded our program to include an inpatient unit specializing in care of the recidivist patients. It now serves as the industry benchmark, the standard by which other centers have modeled their approach.

Our program has an impressive success rate. More than 2,000 new patients are referred to us each year, and the majority of them experience decreased duration, frequency or severity of headaches, and decreased use of analgesics. Nationally recognized, the Diamond  Headache Clinic is a referral center for the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke. We also serve as a research site for the National Institutes of Health.

The special strength of the Diamond Headache Clinic comes from a comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach to headache management. Our staff includes physicians, nurses, psychologists, pharmacists, dietitians, physical therapists, activity therapists and counselors, who apply such therapies as medication, dietary modification, biofeedback training, lifestyle modification and psychological counseling.

Biofeedback training is a particular strength of the Diamond Headache Clinic, which has played a pioneer role in the application of this non-drug treatment to headache management. In 1983, the Diagnostic and Therapeutic Assessment Panel of the American Medical Association recognized biofeedback as an established treatment of vascular and tension headaches.