Neurofeedback

I've been off antidepressants for two months now, and off my initial dose for 7 months. I have also been under some stress lately with stupid health issues (an endless cold, weird back pain, etc etc) and a visit from my (very lovely) grandpa. So maybe it is no wonder that I am starting to question if some of the original symptoms are coming back. I've had a great many more panic attacks recently than I can remember having in the previous year, and my response to the smallest stresses (grandpa's visit, sister's wedding, hanging artwork for a show) is to freak out. Even things as simple as having to make dinner or feeling really tired make me anxious. Husband says I don't seem any different, so hopefully this is a case of me making an elephant out of a mouse. Nevertheless, I have decided to try out the neurofeedback suggested to me by an acupuncturist.

I tried to understand this proceedure best I could. I watched the (extremely cheesy) video that the acupuncturist gave me. I also read the book "Symphony in the Brain" by Jim Robbins, a journal who writes on popular science issues, and who is a great fan of the treatment. The book was sensationalist and only mildly informative. It conveyed a sense of a budding scientific discovery gone to waste by the drama and discord among the practitioners.

Here is what I have gathered about this procedure. Our brain's activity produces electrical activity of different frequencies. These can be measured with an EEG and are grouped into types (delta, theta, alpha, beta and gamma), each associated with a several normal (and abnormal) functions. For example, delta frequencies are measured during certain parts of our sleep, alpha when we are relaxed, beta when we anxious. These are generalities of course. So two things are the basis of neurofeedback:

1) Pathologies (depression, ADD, epilepsy, coma, etc) show a deviation of EEG activity from the norm.
2) Brains can be trained to alter their EEG activity.

Both of these statements are technically true. The leap that has not been tested too well in a scientific setting is that training your brain (such as with neurofeedback) can cure the pathology. There are certainly many clinical studies that show this to be the case (from neurofeedback professionals), but even these professionals don't seem to agree on the best protocols. Each practitioner seems to follow their own methodology, deciding which EEG activity to stimulate or suppress, and they don't all agree.

The woman I'll be seeing is following the methods of Siegfried and Susan Othmer (of EEG Info, previous owners of EEG Spectrum, now a completely separate neurofeedback group). I believe they work by messing around with alpha waves, but maybe that is too simplistic. I hope to get a better understand of what she'll be doing during my first appointment with her (on Monday) and by reading a textbook I have ordered that teaches neurofeedback to practitioners. Hopefully they won't mess up my brain too much!

Quitting SSRIs safely and patiently

After taking citalopram (Celexa) for just over six years I have finally succeeded in quitting. I'd tried before, even managing to get down from 40mg to 20mg before I accidentally missed a single dose and spent a week going out of my mind. After bumping it up to 30mg I seemed to regain my sanity but a visit with the doctor left me saddened - she told me I would probably never be able to get off the meds.

This past winter I read the book, "Biology of Belief" by Bruce Lipton. It was interesting and inspiring, even if the science is dubious at best. It talked of mind over matter, our ability to heal ourselves, and it made me think of trying to quit the drugs again. Remembering my past experiences I did some research, and found out that one resource among others seemed to help a lot of people - a book by Joseph Glenmullen, "The Antidepressant Solution".

The message of the book boiled down to one thing: the doctors don't know the safe way of going off SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). I had been following my doctors advice of taking a full dose one day, then a half dose the next, then a full dose again. After a week I was supposed to switch to doing just the half dose. Repeat. What I did this time (for reason well illustrated in the book), was to lower my dose by the smallest fraction possible, which in my case was 5mg, and try to stay on that dose for at least a month. This gives your brain time to adjust and kick in it's own serotonin production. After a month I would lower the dose again by 5mg and so forth. I was also supplementing with an excellent B vitamin complex, which provides choline and lecithin, needed for acetocholine production (that is advice not from the book but this site.)

It took me 5 months, six if you count the number of withdrawal periods. It wasn't pleasant, but it was far less painful than my previous attempts. Among physical symptoms I had dizziness, which would usually come on three days after I lowered the dose, and last a few days. Psychologically, I had some pretty bizarre obsessive thoughts. I didn't recognize them as symptoms until I saw a pattern emerge. I still had the occasional panic or anxiety attack, but no more so then when I was on the drugs.

So now I have been drug free for two months. I am still on the look out for signs that I am slipping back into the anxiety state I was in pre-meds, but so far so good. I should mention that I do not regret the decision to start the medicine in the first place. It was at a time in my life when they were the help I needed to become a person again (perhaps more on that another day?) Still, it feels great to know that I am not a dependent, that if I accidentally miss taking that one little pill I will not have to spend the next few days suffering crazy withdrawal symptoms.

I shall now allow myself a "Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiippeeeeeeeeeeeee!" :)

First Time Acupuncture

Husband has seasonal allergies and doesn't like taking meds, so I thought he should try acupuncture. I got him an appointment and then he decided not to go. So I figured, what the heck, I'll go in his place.

This was my first time getting acupuncture. I wasn't sure what my "major complaint" was, but since I have been freaking out emotionally lately I decided to go with the panic and anxiety and my phobia. First the woman did a variation of the emotional freedom technique (their site), which I have already done in the past. It involves tapping on various points while thinking about what's bothering you. She added to that a kinesiology step to check which points were effective. I felt that the whole thing was rushed, I didn't have time to really focus on what was bothering me, so I am not sure how effective it could be. An interesting thing that came out of it though, was that she felt that I responded well to a 'kidney' point just below the clavicle. Apparently in Chinese medicine, fear is associated with the kidneys. So I told her that I'd had unusual kidney quirks since I was a kid, and that besides, I have three kidneys instead of two. Could there be a connection?

Next she had me lie down and she pushed on various parts of my large intestine, small intestine, bladder and each kidney. Some places hurt, other didn't. The ones that hurt, she would push again while simultaneously pressing on some points on my feet and elbows, and the weird thing is, the pain would go away immediately. That was probably the coolest.

Finally it was time for actual needles. She put some in my feet for the kidneys, one in my forehead for the spirit, and two in my right ear. She also put one in my hand but it hurt, and though I didn't mind the pain, she didn't want me to keep it in. The one in my forehead burned quite a bit, but that was about it. There was no pain when they went in, not even mosquito bite type of pain. I was then left to lie on the table for about 15 minutes, and that was it. Afterward I was seriously spaced out for about an hour. I wondered around downtown because I didn't feel it was safe to drive, and talked to my mother on the phone in strenuously strung together sentences.

In the evening I had a bad headache, and this morning I did not start my day with a panic attack, the first in a week. So that is good.

In the end, my acupuncturist said that for my problems I should really try neurofeedback (explanation here). It is expensive though, probably about $1500 total. I got a book about it, called "The Symphony in the Brain", which I'll check out. I'll keep you posted.

Jalapeño Hands

Oh the pain!!! I was making salsa and guacamole for my friend's farewell dinner last night and had to dice some jalapeño. I have done this many times before, though the peppers were never quite so enormous, and I usually experience a mild burn on my hands for a few minutes, but last night was a shocker!

Jalapeños contain capsaicin, which is hydrophobic (not soluble in water) and acts as an herbicide in the chili pepper family. So first I tried washing the hands with lots of soap and water, because soap can bind nonpolar molecules such as capsaicin (though it had to be cold water because anything resembling heat would increase the burn significantly). When that did not seem to be working I asked Husband to look into remedies online. Here is a list of all that we tried:

- rubbing alcohol (pleasant cooling effect and relief for ~30 seconds, then resumed burn)
- olive oil (the theory, again, is that the oil will bind the capsaicin and help it wash off, but it actually made the burn seem greater for some reason)
- soy milk
- soy yoghurt (at this point my guests arrived, which was interesting)
- lime juice (was very pleasant, but burn returned soon again)
- moisturizing lotion
- hand sanitizer (though same as alcohol really)
- hydro cortisone lotion
- pepto bismuth, crushed and dissolved in water because I did not have any liquid pepto (online remedy that wikipedia says is ineffective, and that is true in my experience)

The only thing that worked in the long run was to sit with my hands in a bowl of cold soapy water. I would take the hands out every couple of minutes, and when the burn became intense I would dip them back in. I never did try bleach, which is another online remedy that wikipedia says is ineffective. The cutting of the peppers happened at ~7pm and I finally noticed an improvement in my hands around midnight, so about 5 hours total duration. I also refrained from actually eating the salsa and guacamole beyond a tasting stage, though my guests did not complain of any digestive issues.

In a related side note, our cumbers were completely destroyed over the course of a single day by the striped cucumber beetle. I have red somewhere the jalapeño spray can be used to deter them, which from my experience, I am tempted to think is true.