By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

Not many doctors can say they've cured a 20-year-old headache, a persistent, throbbing pain around the eyes. Dr. Barbara Berling said it was a high point of her 10-day visit to remote Ailug Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

The only doctor for about 400 people there has the medical training of an ambulance attendant in Our Honolulu. He fishes, goes to church and hands out pain medicine or antibiotics if somebody asks him for them.

"When I came, they were using the dispensary as a living room-meeting hall," said Berling on her way back to Gruenwald, Germany. "It's where the radio is. I think this is the first time it became a dispensary.

"People have headaches for years. For example, the constant wind gives them neuralgia, a bad pain that affects the facial nerves.

Without proper treatment, it can become chronic."

Berling said she used acupuncture, a treatment popular in Europe, to relieve the headaches. After two days, a patient said it was the first time in 20 years that she felt no pain. "She laughed for the first time," said Berling.

Berling learned from people there. "I appreciated their way to accept suffering. They have a high capacity to take life as it is, not to complain too much. It's really incredible."

Of the patient with the 20-year headache, Berling said: "I think this woman was a good wife and mother in spite of the pain."

Berling said she didn't know where to start when she arrived because the people have lost much of their knowledge of ancient medicine and aren't very familiar with the new. The medical aide saw no patients. But he was eager to learn, and the people came around when they realized that Berling could help them.

"I found a lot of pain, a lot of joint problems caused by rheumatism and obesity," she said. "People sleep on mats and that causes swollen joints more pain. They live active, strenuous lives. In other ways, they are more healthy than people in Europe.

"But they have problems with diarrhea and respiratory infections. Every time a ship from Majuro comes with supplies and passengers, there's a severe flu epidemic."

Berling said she brought a solar-powered desalinization kit that she set up in the dispensary to make sterile water available. On Ailug, people drink rainwater that runs off roofs into catchment tanks.

She also packed educational supplies such as pencils and tablets as well as her stethoscope, blood sugar and urine test kits and her acupuncture needles.

"For my next visit, I intend to put a lot of energy into health education," Berling said. "Diabetic patients don't understand why they should take their medicine regularly or how much sugar there is in a can of Coke."

She said her husband took care of their two children while she made the volunteer trip at her own expense.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.