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!" :)

Woman Stuck to Toilet

Here I was complaining about my silly little emetophobia, when this poor woman was putting herself through an unimaginable ordeal! I am sure you've heard the story, but just to recap, the unnamed Kansas woman had begun about two years ago to hang out more and more in the bathroom of her boyfriend's mobile home. Eventually she stopped leaving the bathroom entirely, though according to the boyfriend, 37 year old Kory McFarren, she would still move around, bathe and change into fresh clothing. About a month ago, however, she had apparently stopped leaving the toilet seat entirely, developed sores and infections, which lead to nerve damage and physically grafted her to the toilet seat. McFarren finally called 911 when she began to be incoherent or out of it, and they took her, along with the attached seat to the hospital. The man is now being charged with mistreatment of a dependent adult, while the woman is being said to be uncooperative with medical staff and authorities. The entire situation was precipitated by some events in the woman's past, neglect or abuse, in which she was locked in her parent's house. Additionally the woman's mother had died when she was young.
I have mixed feelings about this, of both shock, disgust, a scary kind of understanding, and a guilty happiness over being much more sane. Our minds are scary places, not easily fixed, and without which even a healthy body is worthless.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall...