The Headache Healer’s Handbook. Jan Mundo

well, exercising, and remaining stress-aware, I did not get the blazing migraine that had become so predictable I could time my periods by it. I also noticed that my hot flashes were often preceded by angry or fearful thoughts. The connections between my mind, body, and health were becoming increasingly clear.

       Life of a Headache Magnet

      To my surprise, ever since I learned how to stop headaches on the spot in 1970, I seemed to become a magnet for people who had them. Wherever I went — work or job interview, party or family gathering, boutique or makeup counter — someone would inevitably complain to me, “Ugh, I’ve got such a headache! I have to [fill in the blank: take a break, go home, leave the party, lie down, take a pill . . .].”

      So I would offer to help, saying, “I can stop your headache! All I’m going to do is put my hands on your head; just give me about five minutes.” (“Really? Okay. . .”) Lord knows why, but they trusted me. Slipping into the privacy of a nearby office, dressing room, the corner of a store or home, I would relieve the pain. Afterward, delighted and amazed, they would thank me and resume their activities, now pain-free. This occurred hundreds and hundreds of times without my understanding the process or knowing how pervasive the problem of headaches is.

      Then in 1991, after twenty-one years of this informal experimentation, my path took an unexpected turn, and I made the decision to devote myself to a life in healing. I was working as a magazine advertising sales manager, finally at the top of my game and able to support my children, when I was suddenly laid off during our industry’s annual trade show. I was devastated. But then just an hour later, in the middle of saying my goodbyes, I stopped a client’s migraine — at her booth in the middle of the noisy Las Vegas Convention Center, packed with forty thousand people! I was surprised that my method worked even amid such chaos. A light bulb went off in my head, and I decided right then that I would teach others how to relieve their own pain.

       The Scope of the Problem

      In order to teach my healing method to others, I realized that not only would I need to become a keen observer of how it worked, but I would also need to learn all about headaches. I immersed myself in the literature, poring over consumer and medical books, peer-reviewed headache and neurology journals, countless articles, and research abstracts — until I began to understand the scope of the problem: there were millions of headache sufferers in the United States.

      In 1992, there were an estimated 23.6 million migraineurs, of whom 11.3 million had moderate to severely debilitating migraines.¹ This population was “bedridden for about 3 million days per month and had an estimated 74.2 million days per year of restricted activity due to migraine,” potentially costing businesses $1.4 billion in lost productivity annually.²

      These staggering numbers are even higher today and, as in 1992, tell only half the story. Headache and migraine patients suffer for years, even decades, but not for lack of seeking a cure. Desperate for answers, most seek help over time from a variety of professionals, consulting with neurologists, pain specialists, psychiatrists, psychologists, dentists, orthodontists, optometrists, ENTs (ear, nose, and throat doctors), allergists, osteopaths, naturopaths, acupuncturists, chiropractors, homeopaths, nutritionists, yoga teachers, and mind-body practitioners, including biofeedback, physical, occupational, craniosacral, Reiki, and massage therapists.

      And yet, after rounds of prescribed and over-the-counter medications and other therapies, millions of people still have millions of migraines. A particular drug might work at first but then lose its effectiveness. Patients who experience negative side effects from a medication or treatment discontinue it and switch to another therapy, thus beginning their search again. Prolonged reliance on one or a combination of medications results in increasingly frequent and intense episodes — and with their pain escalating, patients move on to another practitioner.

      This miserable merry-go-round takes an emotional toll. Hope rises with the promise of each new, cutting-edge therapy, only to be dashed when it doesn’t work. After years of suffering, headache patients become increasingly isolated, disillusioned, frustrated, and angry. They begin to accept the previously unimaginable prognosis that their migraines are incurable. Worn down and resigned to their fates, with hopes of a cure gone, many patients respond by giving up, doing nothing, falling into despair, or becoming drug-dependent, which still leaves them with cycles of chronic headaches and pain.

       Headache Healing Confluences

      These insights into the desperate world of headache sufferers made me more determined to teach my therapy. I thought: “There’s all this suffering, and yet I can relieve a headache in minutes with my hands. I need to do what I can to bring my therapy out into the world.”

      But first, I had to determine whether anyone could do it, or if it was just my touch. I transcribed into words what I had been experiencing on the head and in my hands and created simple step-by-step instructions to describe the process. I asked several people with history of migraine to test my instructions, and my willing test subjects reported being able to “stop a headache in its tracks” or “back one down from escalating into a full-blown migraine.” This was exciting!

      In iterating the specifics of my method, I identified a fascinating cycle of sensations that occurred during the treatment. That is, all headaches had a predictable set of sensations that could be felt, altered, and released, and at each stage there were subtle, yet identifiable cues that, when complete, signaled relief. I used all these cues to codify my method into a protocol that included the focused concentration, or mental push, that seemed to shorten the treatment time.

      Examining my method led me to a larger implication: not only did the headache resolve, but so did any associated migraine symptoms, such as nausea, disorientation, and sensitivity to light, sound, and odors. This signified an even bigger story: touch and concentration were producing neurological and physiological changes that were instantly affecting the brain, the pain, and the body’s systems.

      I met with medical, mind-body, and research professionals — brilliant and generous leaders in their respective fields — to introduce my work and find a path forward. In 1992, I graduated from Massage School of Santa Monica as a certified massage therapist, trained in myofascial and energy work, and opened my practice in California. My first patients were referred to me by UCLA associate clinical professor and neurologist Susan L. Perlman. Based on Dr. Perlman’s follow-up comments — that her patients were able to successfully relieve but not prevent their headaches — I was inspired to design a program for prevention.

      I attended medical research and scientific conferences and participated in early U.S. efforts to study complementary medicine. I went to the first National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Alternative Medicine Conference in Bethesda, Maryland, and to the NIH Clinical Research Training in San Francisco, California, in 1992. I attended four-day medical professional meetings, including “The Practicing Physician’s Approach to the Difficult Headache Patient,” sponsored by University of Chicago School of Medicine / Diamond Headache Clinic in 1992 and Annual Scientific Meetings of the American Headache Society in 1998, 1999, and 2001.

      Attending my first medical conference was a fortunate coincidence. My dad, orthopedic surgeon Louis Spigelman, MD, had received an invitation to a headache conference and sent me instead. There, I was initially shocked to learn that most headache research was funded by the same pharmaceutical companies that develop and sell the drugs. They also sponsored significant portions of the conference — the doctors’ breakfasts, coffee breaks, luncheons, dinners, galas, and educational seminars. I also got an unsettling glimpse into the competitive world of headache medicine when a neurologist who presented a lecture connecting food sensitivities and migraine was roundly criticized by his colleagues.

      If medical professionals were so hard on each other and if money controlled the field, what chance did I stand? Escaping the lecture hall for the Palm Springs sunshine, I met the one person I needed to meet: neurologist and cluster headache specialist Dr. Lee Kudrow, Sr. I demonstrated my method to him, and he invited me to his office, where he encouraged me to continue my work and to further develop its mental focus component.

      Personal health challenges