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Q - I am a 16 year old boy and I have just encountered a seizure while having surgery and have been experiencing blurred vision and blacking out when going to stand up. I also have constant headaches. Can you tell me if these are long or short term effects, and also tell me some other long or short term effects a seizure patient might witness?
A - You should contact your physician immediately and describe the symptoms you
are experiencing. |
Q - My 7 year old daughter was diagnosed with complex partial seizures 3 years ago. She has also had Cerebral Palsy since birth. She doesn't have them but one every few months, but they last for at least an hour. This is with using her Diastat rescue medicine, which they have her at 20mg now. She is currently on Keppra and Lamictal, the later of which they are increasing to get to an acceptable level. Yet it seems as though there may be more going on that we are not aware of. She has to repeat the same sentence she is trying to say numerous times and has started to make like "grunting" sounds instead of talking. The medicine side effects are not great and we were wondering if there is something else that we could try instead?
A - We see many clients with seizure disorders. One of the concerns with small
children is that the anti-seizure medications can have serious negative
effects on cognitive development. The treatment for seizure disorders is
based on the results of the brainwave assessment. There are many forms of
seizure disorder and the brainwave assessment identifies the exact nature
and location of the functional problem(s) in the brain. First step therefore
is to have a full brain assessment. After the assessment we can develop a
treatment regimen. |
Q - My daughter have been having seizures since four months old, when she had her baby needles. Since then she has try many types of medications, keto diet, corpus colostomy. She is now 22years old. Would you recommend treatment for her? She has seizures daily.
A - Yes, I would definitely recommend neurotherapy for your daughter.
Neurotherapy has been found helpful in situations such as you describe. If
you let us know where you are located we can see if we can recommend a
CERTIFIED practitioner in your area. |
Q - I am a 45 year old woman who has had epilepsy since my menses. I average on a bad month, around 2-3 seizures. The hard part is that they are simple/partial, therefore I am alert through them. I would like to know if you would recommend any treatments, alternative therapies etc., that could benefit me.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated
A - The usual treatment for seizure disorder includes increasing a particular
brainwave amplitude (Sensory Motor Rhythm) over the area of the brain
associated with body movement (Motor Cortex). In addition, conditions that
are likely contributors to reducing the seizure threshold (making seizures
more likely) such as inefficiencies in the quieting brainwaves, frontal
cortex imbalances, and the like are corrected. Some home treatment
procedures are likewise normally recommended.
The first step is to have an
intake brain assessment to determine the exact nature and location of the
problem in the brain. The exact treatment regimen is based directly on the
data obtained from the initial assessment. Neurotherapy is very effective
for many of the seizure disorders. |
Q - My son has been having sporadic seizures for 8 years(he is 25), and has been on Divalproex for that period of time. Recently (within 6 months) he was also placed on Levetiracetam. However, recently we have noticed that his seizures are becoming more and more frequent. He has had countless EEGs, EKGs, and an MRI, all which turned up nothing conclusive, and we are at our wits end and don't know what to do. Is there anything that you would recommend? Could it be something in his diet that is causing this?
A - As you may know if you have researched neurotherapeutic treatment is that
one of the first applications of neurotherapy was in the treatment of
medication resistant epilepsy. This goes back some four decades and since
that time we have developed additional adjunctive treatments that raise
seizure thresholds. It is not surprising that the many EEGs, MRIs etc have
turned up negative. Some reports indicate that such procedures can miss more
than a quarter of clients with seizure disorders.The procedure that we use
is to do a brain assessment (an EEG but with more detailed data bases) to
determine areas of the brain that may be exacerbating the seizure problem.
The basic treatment that we use for seizure disorders is to strengthen the
Sensory Motor Rhythm (SMR), a brainwave between about 13 and 15 cycles per
second that is found over the top of the brain (roughly from the tip of the
ears across the head). In addition, we have adjunctive treatments that we
use to modify specific brainwave amplitudes that in turn increases seizure
thresholds. As you suggest, diet may be important and we do know that some
food sensitivities seem to decrease seizure thresholds as well. Our success
rate with seizure disorders is quite good but usually many treatments are
required, although we have had some remarkable changes with a few clients
with just a few treatments. You may wish to consult my web-site to find some
of the relevant information and articles on this subject. You may also find
a book by the mother of a former patient of interest. Her son had epilepsy
in addition to autism and her book "Getting Adam Back" details some of the
things she tried in her effort to get proper treatment for her son. Her book
is available on-line at www.gettingadamback.com. |
Q - My seventeen year old daughter suffered a serious depressed compound skull fracture in the summer of 2004 as a result of a water-skiing accident. After surgery, she seemed to make a full recovery but in the spring of 2007, she began experiencing mild seizures at nighttime when she was physically or mentally exhausted. A neurologist at Children's hospital in Vancouver put her on anti-seizure medication but my daughter has weened herself off it at she thinks it may have been contributing to concentration problems and brain fog. She has been off the medication since December 2007 and so far she has not experienced any further seizures. My concern is that she leaves for university in Ontario this September and I am worried that the stress of being away from home combined with a rigorous academic work load may cause her seizures to start up again. Is there anything that can be done to help prevent this?
Thank you.
A - The obvious course of action is to encourage your daughter to pace herself
and avoid fatigue. Seizure threshold is lowered by an increase in slow
frequency brainwave amplitude. These slow frequencies are associated with
fatigue and sleep which is why many seizures occur at night. Stress can
likewise reduce seizure threshold. Again careful attention to pacing herself
will go a long way in helping reduce the risk of seizure. She would also
benefit from scheduling a relaxation exercise into her daily routine. These
exercises don't have to be long but daily practice is important. The
treatment for these conditions would include some neurotherapy to reduce
slow frequency amplitude and increase the amplitude of the sensory motor
rhythm. This neurotherapy treatment will increase the seizure threshold and thus reduce seizures. In addition, a
stress assessment would be useful to determine the most effective relaxation
exercise for your daughter. The stress assessment tests all of the relevant
autonomic nervous system modalities (e.g., heart rate, respiration,
peripheral blood flow) to determine the modality that is most responsive to
stress. This in turn identifies the specific relaxation exercise that would
be most efficient to reduce stress. Your daughter is correct, anti-seizure
medications often do adversely affect cognitive efficiency. Thus, if she can
be vigilant about pacing herself and following a daily regimen of a brief
relaxation protocol she can keep her seizure threshold high. |
Q - My 6.11 year old son has Childhood Apraxia of Speech (severe but now sentence level with understandability about 3 yrs and comprehension, vocabulary, etc age appropriate), Subclinical Seizure Disorder (on Divalproic (?) for 2.5 yrs), Stereotypic Movement Disorder (diagnosed by Roger Freeman, B.C. Children's Hosp.), and Developmental Coordination Disorder. He presents as a very typical boy, socially, physically and academically, in spite of his diagnosis. I was wondering if your techniques would work with my sons needs (especially the speech, as I have already read about your successes with seizure disorders).
A - We see many children with complex conditions such as the one you describe.
From your description it sounds as though the SMD and DCD are mild. The
Depakote also may have some cognitive side effects such as cognitive
slowing. The procedure that we use includes normalizing some of the brain
inefficiencies and then using braindriving procedures with tasking. This
procedure involves having the child engaged in a task (e.g., speech) while
the area(s) of the brain associated with the task are under treatment. We
find it a very effective procedure for remediation. We would also address
the seizure threshold issue with a view toward reducing the antiseizure
medications. |
Q - My daughter has been tested for epilepsy , there are no grounds for this but still a fit after a highly emotional discussion or telephone call . Could you recommend someone in Sydney who specialises with EFT and is in the medical profession.
A - You do not state the age of your daughter. If she is in teens or older you may be dealing with pseudoseizure disorder which is trauma based. EFT not a good treatment of choice for this condition although it can be used adjunctively to neurotherapy or experientially based therapies. I do not know any EFT practitioners in Sydney but for neurotherapy go to BCIA.ORG and click on "find a practitioner" and look for someone certified in EEG in your location. |
Q - Is there a treatment center close to Cincinnati Ohio? Also, Brockville, Ontario (1 hour from Ottawa)?
As background... our daughter has had epilepsy since 3 years of age...she is 13 currently. She was on the ketogenic diet when she was 5 years old with great success, but at that time she had only absence seizures. We took her off of the diet because she developed a large kidney stone requiring surgery. She has been on multiple medications since that period with no sustained success. She has focal/generalized seizures and has absence seizures as well and has started the ketogenic diet again about 5 months ago with some success.
A - For a useful account of neuroptherapeutic treatment of conditions such as
you describe see Arlene Martell's excellent book "Getting Adam Back",
available online at www.gettingadamback.com. For qualified practitioners in
Cincinnati call Dr. Colura at 440-232-6000 for recommendations. For
Brockville, call Drs. Michael and Lynda Thompson, who are in Toronto area
but would know of qualified practitioners in the area, at 416-803-8066. |
Q - My son is 19 and suffers from lennox gastaut syndrome. He has been on many drugs and the ketogenic diet without success. He is developmentally disabled and has 10+ seizures a week. Do you think he could benefit from your treatment?
A - We see many clients with the rarer forms of seizure disorders including
Baltic, Mediterranean, Ramsay Hunt and Unverricht-Lundborg as well as the
form your son has, Lennox Gastaut. As you perhaps know, many of these
disorders are the same with different names and some have minor differences.
Our experience with these progressive disorders is that all clients have
benefited from neurotherapy. The extent of the improvement varies
considerably. Some of these improvements, although not a cure, are
important because the seizure frequency decreases and most promising, the
progression of the condition is halted. In one case, for example, a client
with the Baltic form has reported continued reduced seizure frequency and no
progression of the disorder for the last three years. This client receives
continued maintenance neurotherapy treatments about three times per year to
sustain the gains. In other cases the common problem of habituation to the
anti-seizure medication experienced by such clients appears to be markedly
reduced so that they are better maintained with their medication. Regarding
your son, I do think that our treatments could be very helpful in reducing
seizure frequency. Given that your son experiences 10+ seizures per week,
you would know quite soon if our treatments are beneficial in increasing
seizure threshold. Parents also report improved cognitive functioning with
our treatments as well. |
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