I worried about having a brain hemorrhage or stroke in August of 1983.

I phoned Adano Ley (Swami Nitty-Gritty) at his Houston HQ from my mobile home in Carpinteria, pleading, “I need a treatment over the phone.”

I continued, “I don’t know if I busted a blood vessel in my head or what. With any effort, when I get the blood flowing, my head feels like it’s being pounded with a sledge hammer. It feels like somebody’s going at it with a pneumatic drill, and I almost pass out. It’s been going on for 9 days, and it all started when I was lifting weights at the gym. Right now I’ve got an earache and my head hurts all over.”

Adano asked, “What kind of exercise were you doing at the gym? Presses? Curls?”

“Presses,” I replied. “I wasn’t using free weights. I was doing incline presses on one of those machines. I was really straining, and my head suddenly started hurting. At first it didn’t seem so bad, but it kept getting worse. First I couldn’t localize the pain – my head hurt all over – but now I’ve found this ‘egg,’ a really sore spot, on the back of my head.”

Adano: “Sure. You just locked your mouth doing the press! Which side hurts?”

Me: “Left, on the occiput.”

Adano: “What man do you want to tell off?”

Me: “Man? Shouldn’t it be a female? On the left rear? On the back of my body? I’ve been having lots of trouble with women!”

Adano stuck to his guns. “No, it’s a man. Sneak attack! He came up behind you, right?”

Me: “Yeah, how’d you know that? Just when I was pushing hard, the owner of the gym came up behind me and ‘spotted’ me for the lift. He told me to keep going, to give it all I had. That’s when I got the headache.”

Adano: “Oh? Keeping talking.”

Me: “Wow, it seemed like such a small thing. But I really did resent him doing that. So what do I do?”

Adano: “Stick your tongue out. Release your mouth.”

Me: “Ny-aa-ahhh! … OK.”

Adano: “Are your ribs sore on the left side?”

I palpated. “No,” I replied. “I don’t feel anything.”

Adano: “Feel near the sternum.”

Me: “Owww! That sucker IS sore!”

Massaging the indicated reflex started giving me quick relief from my head and ear pain.

Adano: “You’ve got gas stuck in your small intestine. Feel both sides of your chest. Which is colder?”

Me: “Hmm-mm, the right side is definitely colder.”

Adano: “Get a match or a lighter, and hold it up to that side. Don’t burn yourself. What time of day did you first have the problem?”

Me: “Spleen Time. It was in the morning not far from Heart Time.”

Adano: “Make a drink out of aloe vera, cayenne, and ginger. Drink it at Thyroid Time to get the gas moving, and you’ll be OK.”

And I was. The pain departed for 3 days.

3 days later, back at the gym, I was straining to break my personal best chin-up record, completing a chin-up and struggling for another.

The gym owner walked in the door of the gym BEHIND me and observed me.

He didn’t stare. He didn’t scrutinize. He just looked at me. That’s all it took.

The instant my peripheral vision caught his reflection in the gym mirror, BAM! BAM! BAM! went the sledge hammer in my skull.

The pain disappeared after massaging the same chest reflex, which was sore again.

I never turned my back on that gym owner again, and my head pain never returned.