Sean Mackey, M.D., Ph.D.
speaker
373 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard Apr 2025
Sean Mackey, M.D., Ph.D.’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
It's under a rare condition. It's one of those rare ones that affects men more than women, but women do get them. You think I would know the prevalence of this too.
Yeah. Yeah. Less prevalent than migraines. Common treatments for these, there's abortive and there is preventative. What the preventative are like, calcium channel blockers that you can take, abortives, the typical migraine medications, the triptans. So I have stockpiles of triptans. High flow oxygen. So I knew I was getting one. Before these happen, I get this prodromal phase with weird appetite.
Sleep gets disrupted, I know, and a sticky eye sensation. I was giving a talk at the Napa Pain Conference, and I knew they were coming on, so I threw a tank of oxygen in the back of the car and showed them.
If I can get it in time, if you can abort these things in time, you can save yourself several hours of absolute agony, and you can catch it in like a half an hour. So the long and the short of it is, it was through that journey of learning that I became informed and I developed self-efficacy.
So when I got these attacks, when I knew what they were, I no longer had a huge amount of fear that would further amplify things. I was fearful it was a brain tumor. I was fearful like I was having a subarachnoid bleed. I knew what it was. It didn't change the sensory dimensions of the pain. It didn't change the agitation. But I knew even if I didn't catch it, it was going away in a couple hours.
And that gives you control. So when these happen, I know I'm prepared. I know it's going to be a shitty two weeks and I buckle up, but I know how to deal with it. I know I'll come out of it. And it makes a huge difference in quality of life.
And that's what I messages I would try to give patients is it's about learning as much as you can about your condition, being informed and putting that to use. And ideally giving yourself a degree of self-efficacy over your health. And when I listened to your story, it had parallels there. That journey that you have, you've clearly used it, maybe tried to say, make you a better person.
And yeah, I have a lot of empathy for people as a consequence.
Thank you, Peter. It's been 20 some odd years since we've seen each other. And if I can just say, I remember when I saw you, you were kind of an intense guy.
Have you?
I remember thinking to myself, this guy is either going to crash and burn or he's going to do something really awesome. And then decades go by and I get this phone call from Ian and he's like, dad, Peter just gave you a shout out on one of his podcasts about how you helped him. And he's like, how do you feel about that? And I said, I'm just so happy for him.
I had no idea that he's done so well for himself. And you have. Yes, you're seeing one patient at a time and providing great care. But I think this format is reaching so many people. And this is what we need more of. We need more Peter Attias. We need you delivering these messages that are empowering people. You're making a big impact out there.
And I just appreciate you inviting me on to spend some time with you. So thank you.
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