Migraine’s been around for centuries, I’ve suffered for a lifetime, and we still don’t have a reliable treatment that’s effective every time.
Yet, in this excerpt from my book, My Life With Migraine I describe the treatment that in fact ended my murderous headaches.
Not my discovery. It was my late wife who found it and simply set up my appointments. Didn’t ask me; just made the appointments, gave me the schedule and the address.
If you’d known my wife, you’d understand why there was no way I’d refuse to go.
P.S. Incredibly, I haven’t had a headache since those treatments ended.
Why? How did Biofeedback do it?
I don’t know and frankly I don’t even want to ask.
Here’s the excerpt. (From My Life With Migraine pp. 24-26)
“The one exception I made to psychotherapy and my self-examination process, was Biofeedback and I backed into that. Or I should say my late wife...unwilling to watch me writhe in agony any longer, simply went ahead and made a series of appointments for me at what was then called the Clinic for Psychiatric Disorders at a major hospital for treatment. (Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York.)
“I'd heard of Biofeedback..but considered it one of those airy-fairy processes...with...vague connections to the Real World. But I was not about to say no and refuse my wife...given that I had absolutely no Plan B.
“Turned out the only thing I had right was the part about being hooked up to some machine. That machine--this was when the procedure was in its very early stages of development--looked kind of like a large radio with some knobs and an illuminated dial and I was indeed attached with wires extending from the machine to caps on my fingers and--if memory serves--to a band above my eyes running around my head. In addition, I was fitted with a headset and instructed to watch the needle on the dial as I listened and to move that needle from one side to the other.
“What I heard was a gentle, calm voice inviting me to follow his directions as he told me how to relax; starting with my feet, up my body, through my limbs to my head and..to focus upon my breathing through one nostril and then the other and then repeating the process from the beginning as he spoke.
“Surprisingly, after a while just sitting there listening and watching, I did indeed see the needle on the dial, after some hesitation, slowly move steadily from the left to the right, where it settled and remained. Then...the clinic psychiatrist (gave me)...a copy of the tape I'd been listening to, (with) instructions to listen to it twice a day and a businesslike See you next week.
“My treatment lasted thirteen weeks, as I remember, and what's to say? I haven't had even one of those electric-drill-to-the-brain headaches of mine since that time; knock wood. Or, as my grandfather would say, ‘From your mouth to God's ear.’"
Until this very day.
Go figure.