Does anyone remember the elderly gentleman who I'm treating who had the stroke 9 years ago? Well, I'm still treating him twice/week with nice results. A challenge we have is that he is a minimizer. His blood pressure is now 20-30 points lower in the systolic on a regular basis. He no longer chokes on his food. I can also understand him better when he speaks. His family and I all notice these wonderful differences. But, when I ask him if he notices these good things, he usually huffs and grunts, "Not really". A classic minimizer! Today when he came in he said, "Guess what? I think I notice something with all this stuff you're doing. When I was reading scripture last night, I didn't have to close one eye. For the last many years, whenever I read, I start to see double and have to close one eye if I want to continue. Last night was the first time in a very long time I didn't have to do that." He's happy and so am I.
Tag Archives: interesting outcomes
25 Year Old Woman with Seizuers
I saw a 25 year old woman who was having 1-3 seizures per day since the summer. When she came in for her first visit last week, she said, "I've been holding this seizure at bay for hours. I'm about to have a seizure now so you can see it!" She proceeded to pull a neck brace out of her backpack, rushed to lie down on the table, and had a massive seizure for 5 minutes. I videotaped 3 minutes of it. Her examination showed some very interesting and diverse things. Her primary problem is a deficit in her left frontal cortex. On her third visit she said she hadn't had a seizure for 2 days. On her 4th visit, which was 4 days later, she walked in, turned on the timer on her phone, threw it on the floor, got out her neck brace and had another seizure. After one minute and 20 seconds (exactly), I asked her to sit up, as the seizure was about 50% as intense. She did. I had a very mild green light on my scope, which I shone in her left medial pupil. As I did this, her movement stopped completely! I gently did this several times. Each time I moved the light away from her eye, the seizure movements returned, but they were less and less intense each time. Each time the gentle light was in her pupil, the movement stopped completely! Then I used the optokinetic tape and moved it towards her left. As soon as her eyes engaged to watch the tape towards the left, the seizures also completely stopped. I gently did this over and over again until her seizure was gone completely. I wish I had that on video. This young lady has a very fragile nervous system. The plan is to gently make the neurons stronger and stronger in the weakest areas of her brain (neuroplasticity) so she can hopefully get to drive and work again.
14 Month Old Girl
Three miraculous things happened last week in lives of patients!
First, I am treating a 14 month old girl who has never been able to crawl or walk. When she sits up, she is unstable and if she moves her head, she immediately falls over. She also has seizures and a genetic mitochondrial disorder. When I first examined her, one finding was that her left pupil was much larger than the right. When shining light into her left medial pupil, there was no response. A pupil is supposed to constrict with light.
After about 3 weeks of treatment, her pupil became the same size as the right side, but it still didn't respond directly to light. Then, last week, after the treatment, her pupil responded to light over and over again! There was a quantum leap in brain function that day!
Later that night, her mother called elated. She said her daughter was sitting up listening to music and bopping her head all around and was stable and wasn't falling over for the first time! Her husband also said that it seemed that his daughter was really paying attention to him in a way she hadn't before. Let's keep going and see if her seizures will be affected!
Brain Asymmetry Causing Road Rage?
I'm treating a 45 yo man. On initial examination, his blood pressure was 30 points higher on the right side of his body! This was an alarming finding, and was to be treated first. The right side of the brain controls dilation of vessels on the right side of the body only. The left side controls the dilation of vessels on the left. After treating him, his blood pressure was much better, only 10 points higher on the right. However, when he came in after a few treatments, he said he felt his creativity wane. Also, he said he had experienced road rage. I checked his blood pressure and it had switched! Now it was slightly higher on the left side. It was remarkable that within a few visits, his blood pressure was much more normal. I had to re-examine him to make sure the treatment is as accurate as possible for his brain. His brain changed faster than I thought it could have. No more road rage and creativity is back!