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Since she was 14, Kristen Johnson has suffered from debilitating migraine headaches brought on by stress, a crushing pain that all but shuts down her very existence. "Depending on how severe it is, most of the time, it's pretty debilitating," said Johnson, a billing specialist at the University of Mississippi Medical Center's business office in Clinton. "You're not able to see straight. It pretty much stops your life when you have one." But thanks to the care she's receiving through the Medical Center's specialized practice of headache medicine, Johnson's headaches have decreased from three to four a week down to three to four a month. Their duration and severity also have significantly improved, Johnson said. She's one of the many patients served by the Department of Neurology who are getting relief, not through the common use of narcotic medications, but other therapies that are less harsh and more productive in the long run. It's not always easy to work with patients who live with constant headache pain, said Dr. John Norton, professor of psychiatry and one of only two practicing physicians in Mississippi who have earned subspecialty board certification in Headache Medicine from the United Council for Neurologic Subspecialties.
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