Alternative Non-Drug Treatments

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John-Forrest

John-Forrest

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Hello - I would like to start a new line of discussion about alternative treatments. I'm putting it in the "Brain" section since this is about conscious control of the brain and brainwave biofeedback as a method to train your general state.

I personally believe drugs, drugs and more drugs is a very crude way to treat/prevnet occurrence of seizures. It reflects to me how little MDs know about it and I think in the future drug treatment will be looked back on like "blood-letting" in past centuries.

When it comes to neurology and mental illness, the usual procedure is to dope the person up on drugs to "cover up" the symptoms. I'm sure all of you know how these drugs make you drowsy, out of it, unable to enjoy life to its fullest. Not only that, I suspect the drugs create a kind of addiction, so the brain cannot function without it. When the first neurologist prescribed these drugs to me, which I've been taking for three decades now, I was warned that if I stopped taking those drugs it could kill me.

Hasn't it occurred to any of these professionals that these drugs are causing the same thing they are supposed to suppress? Usual medical treatments for other illnesses only use drugs for the period of the illness. To take some alien chemical in the body for a lifetime is bound to have some detrimental effects.

Incidentally, I've heard a rumor that heroin works wonders for epilepsy! All seizures are suppressed - as long as the patient gets their daily dose. And the patient is very complacent, less likely to get in trouble. I think we can do better than being drug addicts.

I think EEG biofeedback has some promise. Let's think outside of the box here: WHAT IF WE COULD CONTROL WHAT IS GOING ON INSIDE OUR BRAIN! I do meditation a lot and I would also be curious if brainwave feedback would enable me to see what is happening. I am speculating whether it would be possible to "turn off" the focal point somehow by distracting neural energy elsewhere.

There may also be some important dietary considerations, what vitamins, minerals, herbs would be effective? Would special relaxation methods help here? Are there psychological triggers to watch out for, get to the root of, and undo?

Does anyone out there have thoughts about this. Or even better - has anyone tried such alternative treatments and found them effective.
 
WHAT IF WE COULD CONTROL WHAT IS GOING ON INSIDE OUR BRAIN! I do meditation a lot and I would also be curious if brainwave feedback would enable me to see what is happening. I am speculating whether it would be possible to "turn off" the focal point somehow by distracting neural energy elsewhere.
Click to expand...

We can, and it's possible through meditation. Honestly, that's really what EEG neurofeedback is. It's meditation while hooked up to an EEG to see if your meditation is influencing your brain waves.

So yes, and EEG will clearly show your brain waves changing under meditation, assuming one has the experience and ability to enter a meditative state and control things. The vast majority if people can't even clear their thoughts and sit still with an empty mind - Void meditation as I call it. That's the most basic meditation in my opinion.

I did some meditation during my last 3 day EEG. Could drop my brain waves from "normal" alpha waves, down into delta waves, then back up into alpha then up into hyper-alpha, which is much faster than the normal alpha waves. Almost was able to get into gamma - the highest and fastest brain waves, but didn't quite make it to that point. Gamma would show up as over 40 Hz(?) on the EEG, I hit a plateau at 38 Hz. I added the question mark because i'm not sure what the measurement was in for the EEG. I think it was Hz though, but I could be wrong.

It freaked them out a lot, until they realized I was the one doing it, and I watching my EEG in the reflection of a mirror. I wasn't supposed to be able to see it I guess. More likely, it was postioned so that the person entering the room would see the brain waves and me in the bed at the same time, so the screen they were displayed on was facing away from me. :D

As far as influencing the focal point. I've had some success with my partials, but it really depends on the type of partial I'm having.
The big one for me is Vertigo. Feeling like I'm falling backwards.
I've found if I'm having a partial that creates vertigo, bringing my awareness to the front of my body and focusing on it will cancel out the effect.
I think in my case, it feels like I'm falling backwards because I get the sensation of the back of my body being extremely heavy and it feels like I'm going to fall backwards or like I already am. Focusing on the front of my body seems to even things out, so to speak, and the vertigo will stop as long as I hold my focus. Since they don't last very long, it's not a big deal, I only have to maintain that focus for maybe 15 seconds. Not that hard :)
 
It seems to me that medication has its place even if taking it causes side effects and the long term effects may be unknown and may end up causing another illness or even death.

The body is a biological system that is not intended to live forever. Medical intervention is often necessary and crucial if the patient is to recover, receive respite from, or prevent death by ‘managing’ disabilitaing illnesses. Medication is one very important way of managing an illness or conditioin. Babies are born with conditions that if not ‘treated’ would or could have extremely short life-spans. People with heart conditions would ultimately die if certain procedures were not carried out – re angioplastys, pace makers or heart transplants.

So to epilepsy. An illness? A condition? I struggled for some years without a diagnoses or any treatment – no medication, no counselling and no control over my ‘episodes’ as my GP referred to them. I’m sure you are all bored with my going on about my heart attack I had in 2008, but here goes anyway. I had an angioplasty inserted into an artery on the left side of my heart and now I am waiting to have an angioplasty to an artery to the right side of my heart. I learned to get use to medication.

Depression – antidepressants, counselling or other therapy? How much can we help ourselves? Yes we should eat healthily, exercise and aim to be positive. I feel medication can help too. Some of our ‘problems’ go way back into childhood. Some of us have suffered traumas that are deeply buried in our subconscious and were part of our early conditioning. Not all of us can easily become motivated or sustain energy levels sufficient enough to hold down a job.

I think like it or not, medication has its place and if anything we should be looking to refine the pills we take so they do more of what they are suppose to do and in the long term cause us less issues than one might expect of them.

:)
 
Any good EEG on the market?

I talked to my MD today and she seemed very open-minded to the idea of brainwave feedback and meditative techniques as a way to go beyond having seizures. She did talk me into taking an extra dose of lamactil a day, since I had a nasty one falling off my bicycle a few weeks ago.

I've done a lot of research on this topic and have some other reasons to try neurofeedback. For example, I have a Masters Degree in Psychology of Creativity (indeependent study) and know that certain brainwave states are very conducive to creatitiy. In deeper states of meditation, I often get a lot of "AHA!" insights.

You know, it is interesting how certain very creative persons in history also had epilepsy. Dostoevsky comes to mind. Also, it is speculated that St. Paul when "struck by light" was having seizures.

I know there are certain psychological triggers I have to watch out for. It could be certain seizures are trying to tell me something that I am overlooking or suppressing, things I need to get out into the open and resolve within myself.

I would like to add that sexual orgasm is a kind of seizure. Think about it: You tremble and shake, see stars and stripes, and are inundated with feelings of pleasure for a few moments, experiencing a profound sense of unity with your partner afterwards. (joke)

I have also been doing some research on the net if there are any valid neurofeedback devices Some of them seem hokey and promise a lot more than you could believe. This is not something insurance would shell out for, that's for sure.

Actually, if you just close your eyes, you are automatically in a alpha state. Zen meditators have been measure and have extremely unique EEG going down into theta/delta while wide awake. So perhaps expensive machinery is not really necessary.
 
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John-Forrest said:
Hello - I would like to start a new line of discussion about alternative treatments. ...

There may also be some important dietary considerations, what vitamins, minerals, herbs would be effective? Would special relaxation methods help here? Are there psychological triggers to watch out for, get to the root of, and undo?

Does anyone out there have thoughts about this. Or even better - has anyone tried such alternative treatments and found them effective.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, I have plenty of thoughts about this... Already posted them numerous times...

http://www.coping-with-epilepsy.com/forums/f22/proactive-prescription-epilepsy-1254/

http://www.coping-with-epilepsy.com/forums/f37/pushing-neurofeedback-into-mainstream-5418/

etc...
 
I am very interested in alternative epilepsy treatments and meditation but I find when depressed it all falls by the wayside even when I try to be positive in my attitude. I keep a blog and write all positive thoughts and negitive thoughts. When I re-read I delete the negative because they are so depressing!!
I want to ask, perhaps this isnt the right thread but does anyone know anything about Stem Cell? What is it, has anyone has it, it is always successful, is it affordable?
Thank you for your interest and for all you interesting and helpful information.
 
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