The Secret behind the 'Harry Potter headaches'

The protagonist Harry Potter has been suffering from headaches for years – and now reputable neurologists have published their findings and diagnosis in their peer-reviewed journal, Headache.

Poor Harry Potter. He needs to meet with Dr. Matthew Robbins, who has been poring over his headache symptoms for some time now and believes he has pinned down the cause of Harry’s problem.

Not that others haven’t tried. Back in 2007 a team of specialists published their discussions in an earlier volume of Headache and concluded that the boy magician was suffering from migraines. Dr. Fred Sheftell felt it was the only logical conclusion based on Harry Potter’s intermittent stabbing head pain.

But over the years other experts pointed out other mysterious symptoms that didn’t quite fit the diagnosis, and now a new team of specialists is chiming in with a fresh opinion piece, published in the most recent issue of Headache.

The final chapters of Harry Potter’s biography, penned by J.K. Rowling, contain new details which have helped the experts narrow down their diagnosis, and they have settled on nummular headache. The what-headache? Funny you ask. There are many neurologists who don’t know the term themselves because the condition is so rare.

Dr. Robbins, an assistant professor of neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the director of inpatient services at the Montefiore Headache Center, said that these kinds of headaches have only recently been identified and codified, which is why they are relatively obscure.

The telling symptom for nummular headaches, Dr. Robbins explains, is that they are felt in the same, narrowly circumscribed place every time. Nummular headaches also are often sparked by, and persist as a result of, a head injury, such as the one Harry Potter sustained, and which led to his lightning-bolt scar.

Robbins studied 59 nummular headache sufferers, all of whom described the pain as originating from the place of the scar tissue on the scalp (from the original injury).

And why are scientists poring over the hypothetical diagnoses of fictional characters? Robbins says it is a good way to spread the word about a relatively obscure condition which affects primarily children and goes frequently unrecognized.

“If you can get the word out to people who are suffering, it’s a positive thing,” Robbins says, adding, “and we had some fun along the way.”

Ah, yes, it is important to have fun on the job, and what better way to have fun publishing scientific papers than to play with fictional characters. We wonder if even J.K. Rowling knew what afflicted her hero.

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Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

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