The year was 1982. I had been suffering, for years, from what was later determined to be "cluster headaches". The first diagnosis was a "sinus" problem" by my orthodontist before I was out of high school. This was agreed with by a Army dentist while I was out and about serving my country.

Back in good ol' Wichita Falls, Texas the murderous headaches continued. A trip to my family doctor resulted in the correct diagnosis of "cluster headache" and a referral to a neurologist. After examining me, the neurologist said he concurred with the diagnosis and didn't see a need for any "serious" testing. He did, however, recommend that I make an appointment with a local psychologist, Dr. Phillip McGraw, who was having some success in treating headaches with "biofeedback".

I made the appointment, and since these were "pre Internet" times, I made my way to the local library to learn more about cluster headaches and biofeedback.

On the day of my appointment, I showed up at Dr. Phil's office in the 600 block of Fillmore Street. He pulled up a chair right in front of me a listened to my story. He then said he had talked to my neurologist and thought biofeedback would be very beneficial in my case and that I should be "encouraged". He then proceeded to administer a written psychological test of some variety and scheduled me for my first biofeedback session.

The actual biofeedback training was giving by an associate and I never talked to Dr. Phil again. The only other time I saw him in the office, he was talking about "aviation" with someone. Hmmm.. I was a pilot. Had I volunteered that information during our little chat, I might be his pilot today!

Anyway, the goal of biofeedback for me was to reduce the flow of blood to my head just enough to relieve the headache pain. This was accomplished by increasing the flow of blood to my limbs, which was accomplished by concentrating on raising the temperature of the target limb. By "feeling" that my arm was warmer, I could make it warmer by causing more blood to flow into it. But, this wouldn't work by simply imagining I was holding my arm over a fire, or some other heat source. At least it didn't work for me.

After about a month of sessions, I was able to raise and lower the temperature in a selected limb simply through concentration. I was able to control, to a limited amount, the flow of blood in my body.

The bottom line is that biofeedback didn't help one bit in relieving the Cluster headaches! But I know it works in controlling other types of pain for many people. It wasn't until several years later that a doctor showed me an article he found where it was discovered, probably by accident, that inhaling pure oxygen will abort a cluster headache in most cases.

So, I tried the oxygen approach and it did indeed stop the headaches within just a minute or two in most cases. After about 15 years of Cluster headaches, they never came back after I hit them with the oxygen. It was like the headaches knew I had discovered the secret, so there was no use in bothering me anymore!

What does this have to do with Amateur Radio?

Zip, Zero, Zilch!

73

WF5TX