Skip to main content

Expert list · Last reviewed April 17, 2026

Top Headache Medicine Doctors in Florida 2026

Headache medicine doctors in Florida with deep clinical focus on migraine, cluster headache, and complex daily headache — where to start your search.

Loading map…

Florida has a small group of headache medicine doctors whose clinical depth and research track record put them among the best in the country — here is where to start if migraine, cluster headache, or daily head pain is running your life.

Headache medicine is a subspecialty of neurology, and the doctors below have built careers specifically around it. Several run headache divisions at teaching hospitals, lead national clinical trials, or direct fellowship programs that train the next wave of specialists. If you have tried a general neurologist and your headaches are still not controlled, these are the kinds of practices a referral should point toward.

Paul Winner

Paul Winner, D.O.

Senior Director, Palm Beach Headache Center (Founder); Senior Director, Palm Beach Memory Disorder Center; Clinical Professor of Neurology, Nova Southeastern University; Attending Neurologist, Palm Beach Neurology

Bascom Palmer Eye Institute

View specialist profile

Dr. Paul Winner founded and leads the Palm Beach Headache Center in Palm Beach Gardens and is a clinical professor of neurology at Nova Southeastern University. He treats both adults and children with migraine, chronic daily headache, and medication-overuse headache, and is one of the few Florida specialists with a long track record in pediatric headache care. His randomized trials of topiramate and rizatriptan in children and adolescents 12 are still cited in national guidelines, and his contributions to the PREEMPT program 3 helped establish Botox as a preventive option for chronic migraine.

Todd Rozen

Todd Rozen, MD

Professor, Neurology

Mayo Clinic

View specialist profile

Dr. Todd Rozen is a professor of neurology at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, where he sees patients with cluster headache, hemicrania continua, new daily persistent headache, and other rare headache disorders. His U.S. Cluster Headache Survey 4 is the largest of its kind and showed just how often the condition is misdiagnosed or dismissed. He has also published widely on how brain inflammation may drive some cases of treatment-resistant daily headache 5, which can change what medicines work for you.

Mark Armanious

Mark Armanious, M.D.

Attending Neurologist, USF Health; Clinical Neurophysiology and Headache Medicine

Orlando Health Cancer Institute

View specialist profile

Dr. Mark Armanious is an attending neurologist at USF Health in Tampa with dual training in headache medicine and clinical neurophysiology. That combination matters if your headaches overlap with nerve pain, seizure-like episodes, or unusual sensory symptoms that need nerve and brain testing alongside headache treatment. He sees patients across several Florida hospital systems, including Manatee Memorial on the Gulf Coast and Cleveland Clinic Indian River on the Atlantic side.

Teshamae Monteith

Teshamae Monteith, MD

Professor of Clinical Neurology; Chief, Headache Division; Fellowship Director, Headache Medicine

University of Miami Health System

View specialist profile

Dr. Teshamae Monteith is chief of the headache division at the University of Miami Health System and directs its headache medicine fellowship. She sees adults with migraine, post-traumatic headache, and hormonally linked headache, and her research has focused on the early warning phase of a migraine attack — the hours of fatigue, mood changes, or food cravings that come before the pain. Her imaging work showing brain activation during this phase 6 and her clinical review of what it teaches doctors 7 have pushed the field toward earlier, smarter treatment.

Olga Fermo

Olga Fermo, MD

Assistant Professor, Mayo Clinic School of Medicine; Director, Headache Division, Mayo Clinic Florida

Mayo Clinic Florida

View specialist profile

Dr. Olga Fermo directs the headache division at Mayo Clinic Florida in Jacksonville. Beyond standard migraine care, her practice is one of the few in the state with deep experience in spontaneous intracranial hypotension — a cause of constant, positional headache that comes from a leak of spinal fluid and is often missed for years. She has contributed to published work on the imaging tests that find these leaks 8 and on the minimally invasive procedures that fix them 910.

Nina Tsakadze

Nina Tsakadze, M.D.

Neurologist, Complete Neurological Care; Associate Professor of Neurology, University of Central Florida

Bethesda Hospital East

View specialist profile

Dr. Nina Tsakadze practices at Complete Neurological Care in Coral Springs and is an associate professor of neurology at the University of Central Florida. She sees patients across Bethesda Hospital East, UF Health Shands, and Boca Raton Regional, and teaches neurology residents. Her early research on how inflammation and blood vessels interact 11 gives her a useful perspective on headaches that travel alongside autoimmune disease, vascular conditions, or unexplained systemic symptoms.

What to look for in a headache medicine specialist

  • Board certification in neurology, ideally with subspecialty certification in headache medicine (UCNS)
  • An academic affiliation with a teaching hospital or fellowship program
  • Experience with your specific pattern — episodic migraine, chronic migraine, cluster, post-traumatic, or daily persistent headache
  • Comfort using newer treatments such as CGRP inhibitors, Botox, and nerve blocks, not just older oral preventives
  • Reasonable wait time and whether they are accepting new patients
  • Insurance compatibility, including for infusions and injectable therapies

Questions to ask before your first appointment

  • How many patients with my type of headache do you treat each year?
  • Which preventive treatments do you use most often, and how do you choose?
  • Do you offer procedures like nerve blocks or Botox in-office, or do I need a separate visit?
  • How do you handle medication-overuse headache if I am already taking daily pain relievers?
  • What is your approach when the first two or three preventives do not work?
  • How will we track whether treatment is actually helping?

The bottom line

If over-the-counter medicine and a general neurologist have not quieted your headaches, a dedicated headache medicine specialist is the right next step. Use this list to bring a specific name to your primary care doctor when you ask for a referral, or to compare against who is in-network on your plan. The doctors above sit inside Florida's larger academic and hospital systems, which means the staff around them — imaging, infusion, pain psychology — is built for complex cases too.

Sources

  1. 1.
    OnabotulinumtoxinA for Treatment of Chronic Migraine: Pooled Analyses of the 56‐Week PREEMPT Clinical Program — Headache The Journal of Head and Face Pain, 2011. DOI
  2. 2.
    Topiramate for Migraine Prevention in Children: A Randomized, Double‐Blind, Placebo‐Controlled Trial — Headache The Journal of Head and Face Pain, 2005. DOI
  3. 3.
    Rizatriptan 5 mg for the Acute Treatment of Migraine in Adolescents: A Randomized, Double‐Blind, Placebo‐Controlled Study — Headache The Journal of Head and Face Pain, 2002. DOI
  4. 4.
    Classification of Pediatric Migraine: Proposed Revisions to the IHS Criteria — Headache The Journal of Head and Face Pain, 1995. DOI
  5. 5.
    Multicenter Prospective Evaluation of Proposed Pediatric Migraine Revisions to the HIS Criteria — Headache The Journal of Head and Face Pain, 1997. DOI
  6. 6.
    Cluster Headache in the United States of America: Demographics, Clinical Characteristics, Triggers, Suicidality, and Personal Burden* — Headache The Journal of Head and Face Pain, 2011. DOI
  7. 7.
    Hemicrania continua is not that rare — Neurology, 2001. DOI
  8. 8.
    Elevation of CSF Tumor Necrosis Factor α Levels in New Daily Persistent Headache and Treatment Refractory Chronic Migraine — Headache The Journal of Head and Face Pain, 2007. DOI
  9. 9.
    Cluster headache with aura — Neurology, 2000. DOI
  10. 10.
    Lack of causal association between spontaneous intracranial hypotension and cranial cerebrospinal fluid leaks — Journal of neurosurgery, 2012. DOI
  11. 11.
    Brain activations in the premonitory phase of nitroglycerin-triggered migraine attacks — Brain, 2013. DOI
  12. 12.
    Head trauma can initiate the onset of adreno-leukodystrophy — Journal of the Neurological Sciences, 2009. DOI
  13. 13.
    The Premonitory Phase of Migraine – What Can We Learn From It? — Headache The Journal of Head and Face Pain, 2015. DOI
  14. 14.
    Acute Migraine Therapy: New Drugs and New Approaches — Current Treatment Options in Neurology, 2010. DOI
  15. 15.
    Tension Type Headache in Adolescence and Childhood: Where Are We Now? — Current Pain and Headache Reports, 2010. DOI
  16. 16.
    Transvenous embolization of cerebrospinal fluid-venous fistulas: Independent validation and feasibility of upper-extremity approach and using dual-microcatheter and balloon pressure cooker technique — Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery, 2023. DOI
  17. 17.
    Lateral Decubitus Dynamic CT Myelography with Real-Time Bolus Tracking (dCTM-BT) for Evaluation of CSF-Venous Fistulas: Diagnostic Yield Stratified by Brain Imaging Findings — American Journal of Neuroradiology, 2023. DOI
  18. 18.
    Multidisciplinary Management Strategies for Long COVID: A Narrative Review — Cureus, 2024. DOI
  19. 19.
    Dual microcatheter and coil/balloon pressure cooker technique for transvenous embolization of cerebrospinal fluid-venous fistulas — Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery, 2022. DOI
  20. 20.
    Autoimmune encephalitis mimicking Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease — Neurology Clinical Practice, 2014. DOI
  21. 21.
    Tumor Necrosis Factor-α-converting Enzyme (TACE/ADAM-17) Mediates the Ectodomain Cleavage of Intercellular Adhesion Molecule-1 (ICAM-1) — Journal of Biological Chemistry, 2005. DOI
  22. 22.
    Interactions of Intercellular Adhesion Molecule-1 with Fibrinogen — Trends in Cardiovascular Medicine, 2002. DOI
  23. 23.
    Signals mediating cleavage of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 — American Journal of Physiology-Cell Physiology, 2004. DOI
  24. 24.
    Hypertonic saline resuscitation improves intestinal microcirculation in a rat model of hemorrhagic shock — Surgery, 2006. DOI
  25. 25.
    Fibrinogen and fragment D-induced vascular constriction — American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology, 2004. DOI

Related specialist lists