In 2007, Dr. Fred Sheftell and Dr. Timothy Steiner diagnosed Harry Potter with probable Migraine based on evidence in the first five books of the Harry Potter series. (see Does Harry Potter Have Migraines?)

In a recent letter to the editor of the journal Headache, Dr. Sylvia Mohen and Dr. Matthew Robbins offer a different diagnosis based on a review of Harry's symptoms in light of the completion of the series. They opine that Harry's headaches, as described throughout the series, appear to fit the proposed criteria that appear in the appendix of the current version of the International Classification of Headache Disorders, 2nd edition (ICHD-II), for nummular headache (NH).*

The reasons Mohen and Robbins cite for classifying Harry's headaches as NH include:

• the location of his lightning bolt scar (somewhat visible in the photo above)
• the description of his pain as searing and burning
• his pain being felt exclusively in a well defined round or elliptical shape
• his pain being interrupted by spontaneous remissions
• there have been some cases of nummular headache starting with trauma, such as the trauma that resulted in Harry's scar

Mohen and Robbins state:

"The major essence of Harry Potter’s headache disorder is that it is post-traumatic, severe, and well circumscribed, most consistent with NH.As a relatively recently described headache phenomenon, NH has mostly been described in an older patient population with a female predominance. However, larger series indicate that adolescents may experience NH.9,10,12 As its true prevalence and incidence are uncertain, its relative lack of reporting among this age group may be attributable to underrecognition rather than a true absence of NH in this demographic, underscoring the underrecognition of headache in the pediatric population in general, a major emphasis of Sheftell et al that we agree with wholeheartedly."¹

Summary and comments:

Regardless of whether Harry Potter has Migraines or nummular headaches, the speculation among Migraine and headache specialists, the publication of their work in medical journals, and the publicity around those publications result in positive attention being paid to headache disorders. This was part of Dr. Sheftell's original intent. When I interviewed him back in 2007, he told me:

"I've always been a big fan of JK Rowling's series on Harry Potter and find her imaginative and creative and able to teach a lot of life lessons to children and adolescents via metaphor and fantasy. I, of course, recognized Harry had headaches and decided why not try to classify them according to our current criteria. I wanted to bring attention to the issues involved with pediatric/adolescent headache, review the current epidemiology, prevalence and impact in a fresh way and discuss the diagnostic issues as well... I'm delighted by the response and interest this article has generated and hope that it will bring about renewed interest in the topic."⁴

Expressing similar thoughts during an MSNBC interview, Robbins commented: