Writer / Pete Walkey
Do you have regular headaches? Do you have trouble sleeping, or wake up tired after a full night’s rest? Do you regularly consume caffeine?
If so, you might be riding “The Devil’s Tricycle.”
Fishers resident Dr. Jeff Van Valer, board certified in Sleep Medicine and Neurology, just released his new eBook, “The Devil’s Tricycle: Migraine Headache, Caffeine Abuse, and Insomnia (the ride you can learn to stop).”
“The Devil’s Tricycle” cites that that around 90 percent of Americans regularly consume caffeine and that if you suffer from frequent headaches, insomnia and consume caffeine regularly, there is hope! “The book exposes caffeine’s dark secrets,” Van Valer said. “It explains how caffeine robs us of sleep and worsens our headaches without us knowing it.” Not only that, but the book “provides the basics of how to regulate the sleep/wake cycle, and that’s something almost no one knows.”
For the past 12 years, Van Valer has treated thousands of patients who suffer from regular headaches and various sleep problems. In the office, he draws simple diagrams to explain the tight relationships between headaches, insomnia and caffeine abuse. After years of explaining these problems to “a baffling number of people,” he thought about designing an educational handout for patients. But he soon realized that that much of the information was suitable not for a pamphlet but for a book. And writing a book happened to be on his bucket list.
Van Valer’s 45-minute commute to and from work gives him “plenty of time to think,” and in one week this past spring, he voice-recorded the entire first draft for “The Devil’s Tricycle.” Although his momentum through the revisions ebbed and receded, the next few months were some of the most rewarding he can remember.
He adds that he’s excited at the prospect of helping someone he will never have the opportunity to meet. “If just one person finds this book and gets better because of it, that would make the effort completely worth it,” he said.
Van Valer says his wife, Luci, and their two children, Martha and Joe, have been “not only supportive but excited” about the project.
In fact, this year in school, 11-year-old Joe accepted a challenge to read forty books before years-end. “Joe told me, when he was finishing number 36, that he wanted ‘The Devil’s Tricycle’ to be one of his books,” said Van Valer. Then with momentum “like a freight train,” Van Valer finished his project and published it in late January.
Van Valer enjoys riding bicycles, on- and off-road, as much as he can, often riding 20 to 50 miles at a time. He grew up in Greenwood, lives in Fishers, and practices neurology and sleep medicine in Muncie. “The Devil’s Tricycle” can be found in the Amazon Kindle Store.
