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I was disappointed to see that co-author Adrienne Richard- also wrote Into the Road, The Accomplice, Wings, all fiction. I found it very odd for a fiction writer to be co-writing a medical book.
... He suggests doses of supplements that go beyond the RDI and gives no reason how he concluded that those doses are the best when I see them to be dangerous. ...
... The whole book seems to be based on anecdotal evidence ...
As someone who champions a "just the facts" approach, I find your ad hominem posturing here curious. The fact that someone may enjoy writing fiction does not invalidate her personal or clinical experience, which you completely ignored.
You may or may not be right, though the book itself gave no reason to justify those doses & that just made me wonder if the doctor pulled them out of his hat. They might be good dosages but why they are is never explained & that is what I need for confidence in them. Also, book was not made to be read in conjunction with CWE and like I said, if the author can only tell me what to do without telling me why I tend to have my doubts.The RDI is not a rigorously developed, individually tailored specification with hard limits. It's a very general average for "average people". It does not consider cases where people might not be metabolizing nutrients normally (or suffering nutrient depletion as a side effect of medications or worse). I covered this ground before regarding vitamin toxicity. Toxicity concerns are a non-issue IMO.
The book outlines the method (and options) used at a real clinic treating real patients with a >80% success rate. There isn't a single AED that can match that.
... My concern was not that she was a fiction writer but that I could find no reference to any training in medicine or health & that's exactly what this book was about (sorry if that wasn't clear). ...
... I do question that. They may have claimed a large success rate but they gave no details as to how they defined "success" how they measured, whether it was the relative or absolute success rate, or how they arrived at that statistics. ...
"This is one approach, albeit one that is broadly adaptable for many individuals. It worked extremely well for Donna Andrews and has worked well for many others; however, there are many forms of epilepsy , many environmental seizure precipitants, many stressors that are unconscious, and many ways to relax. Other approaches similar to this model, and also quite different approaches, exist that can help other individuals with epilepsy. For some patients, including stress--not relaxation-may help block seizures. As we move forward and embrace the Andrew-Reiter approach, we must remain wide open to others."
Yet you failed to mention her experience with the clinic? Her bio/resume is posted on the clinic website:
http://www.andrewsreiter.com/bio d.j.andres.html