Headaches From The Past - By: Gail Leino Leino

Many famous people thruout history have suffered from headaches. People such as Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Thomas Jefferson, Charles Darwin, Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso, were all handicapped by headaches thru out their lives.. Famous sports figures Kareem Abdul Jabbar of The Los Angeles Lakers and Terrell Davis of the Denver Broncos both suffered from chronic migraines. And Virginia Woolf once said that "We can describe the thoughts of Hamlet, but we cannot describe a Migraine." Sigmund Freud described his experience:" The mild attacks of Migraine from which I still suffer usually announce themselves hours in advance by forgetting names, and at the height of these attacks, it frequently happens that all proper names go out the window..."

From the start of mankind, people have suffered from headaches.Many cultures have tried to understand and treat them. Skulls found from ancient times indicate that man was performing a form of neurosurgery thousands of years ago for headache treatment. Known as trepanation, this involved drilling a hole through a part of the skull and was widely performed.

Trepantion was popular among many ancient civilization because it was believed that it released the spirits causing the headache. As late as the 17th century, doctors were still recommending trepanning for the treatment of migraine Records show that William Harvey recommended trepanation to migraine patients in 1660.

Amazing, as it may seem, this procedure is still performed by people on themselves today. In an article, The Therapeutic Benefits of Trepanation- Try to have an Open Mind, Daniel Witt of Temple University discusses the procedure: "Proponents of trepanning claim that this procedure has a variety of beneficial effects including a high " . . . somewhat more intense than the feeling of well-being that runners and other athletes report getting from prolonged exercise . . ." (Forester, n.d.; as cited in ITAG, Media Events and Recent Expeditions, n.d., p. 1). Other claimed benefits of trepanation include reduction of migraine headaches, greater energy and vigor, improved concentration and metal capacity, elimination of depression, psychosis, and stress-related diseases, and a sort of "expanded consciousness" or spiritual awakening (Colton, 1998; ITAG, Introduction & Pulsation, n.d.; Mellen, 1966-1967)." It seems that the old ways are hard to change.

About the Author

A distinctive approach to the treatment of Headaches using Neuromuscular dentistry. Botox is a temporary fix, Neuromuscular dentistry is a long term headache solution.

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