Dealing With Headaches

Headaches and migraines can make people do desperate things to try and relieve the pain, like drilling holes into their heads. This was a treatment for severe headaches in the time of the Incas and was again performed in 1970 by lay person Amanda Fielding.

Before we proceed, let me make a couple of points EXTREMELY clear:

• Do not use this article — or any of the articles this links to — as a substitute for a proper medical diagnosis.
• Do NOT drill a hole in your own skull.
• If you have a sensitive stomach, you might want to skip the rest of this post. Se ya next week!
• Do NOT drill a hole in anyone else’s skull, even if they are really begging for it.

Right. Onwards.

What Were The Incas Thinking?

Unfortuntely, not many accurate and detailed medical records exist from when Inca doctors were drilling holes in people’s skulls. It has been theorised that their patients could have been suffering fram an anuerism or a massive head injury. Even today, part of the treatment requires (you guessed it) drilling a hole in the skull.

Incas were quite technologically advanced and, best of all, they were the original breeders of the domestic guinea pig. Their musical instruments, hydraulic technology and food preservation skills indicate they thought things out thoroughly before they did them. In other words, the Incas were smart cookies. They did things for a reason, not just on a hunch, or the desire to use human beings as…well, as guinea pigs.

For some people, it probably did work. There aren’t any records as to how much longer the patients lived after the procedure, but any time without migraine pain is quality time.

Amanda Fielding

Brace yourself before you check out this link to Amanda’s story, reprinted from the September 16, 2000 issue of New Scientist.

Unfortunately, the story does not mention exactly why Amanda needed to drill a hole into her own skull, although it did mention “mind-expanding expereinces”. It does go into quite a lot of detail about how she did it (with a dentist’s foot-pedal operated drill — yet another reason to be scared of dentists!) Techinically, this operation is called trepanning.

Yes — it’s done often enough to warrant it’s own name.

With further research I have discovered that Amanda filmed her own operation in 1970 and apparantly was now qualified to run for Parliment in 1978.

I am so glad that my strange migraine pain in my left eye seems to have been from clogged sinuses. I’d have to go to the dentist to get cured. I’d rather live with the pain.