Living Well with Migraine: Embracing Wellness in the Face of Chronic Disease

Dawn Buse, PhD

Dr. Dawn C. Buse is a Clinical Professor of Neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. She is on the Board of Directors of the American Headache Society and is a licensed psychologist.

Dr. Buse conducts research on migraine, pain and the effects of chronic diseases on important aspects of life.  She has more than 150 scientific publications and has won six U.S. and international research awards and two professional awards. Dr. Buse is the psychological and behavioral section editor for Current Pain and Headache Reports. Her website (dawnbuse.com) offers free guided visual imagery and relaxation exercises as well as research abstracts. Follow her on twitter at @dawnbuse.

Jelena Pavlović MD, PhD

Dr. Jelena Pavlović is a practicing neurologist and headache specialist who sees patients at the Montefiore Headache Center and is an assistant professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She is also a physician-scientist who holds PhD in molecular medicine. Her research interests broadly focus on hormonal regulation of migraine in women and specifically she aims to answer the question how hormonal fluctuations affect migraine symptoms during the menstrual cycle and across the transition to menopause.

Dr. Pavlović is board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. She is a member of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), the American Headache Society (AHS), and the International Headache Society (IHS). She has published extensively on the topic of migraine in women and is funded by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Aging (NIH/NIA) to conduct research on this topic.

Karen Smith

Karen Smith has carefully documented her migraine attacks for 7+ years, after having occasional migraines a few times a year since her early 20s. That rate dramatically increased in her 40s and she began a quest to better understand migraine disease.

Ms. Smith created a social media-based support group for people with migraine and began to speak out about her own pain and the disruption caused by chronic, frequent migraine attacks. She has seen a variety of medical and alternative medicine specialists and ruled out many possible therapies through trial-and-error. Ms. Smith is pleased to finally be seeing improvements through a combination of lifestyle changes (constant vigilance around adequate sleep!), a TENS stimulator device, and the new class of anti-CGRP medications.

In addition to being a person with migraine, Ms. Smith is also a mother of two, a former technology consultant, freelance writer, and aspiring science fiction and fantasy author. Her hobbies include gardening, knitting, and weightlifting. She lives with her two kids, two dogs, two cats, spouse, and a hefty collection of migraine rescue remedies in the suburbs of Chicago. 

Jaime Sanders

Jaime Sanders is the author of the award-winning blog The Migraine Diva. She is an affiliate partner with the Coalition For Headache And Migraine Patients, with whom she is working to create an Issue Brief on Disparities in Headache and a part of the leadership of the Disparities in Headache Advisory Council (DiHAC).

Ms. Sanders is a stakeholder with the Headache and Migraine Policy Forum, works with the Society for Women’s Health Research Migraine Network, and sits on the Patient Leadership Council with the National Headache Foundation. She has lived with migraine since the age of two and has been chronic and intractable for the last fifteen years. Through her advocacy work and blog, Ms. Sanders’ mission is to make a very invisible disease visible to the rest of the world and validate the real pain of millions.

You may reach her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.