Fibromyalgia, Chronic Pain, Anxiety, ADD and Your Brain

If you are suffering with fibromyalgia, chronic pain, anxiety, or ADD; science shows us you can find help, naturally, without drugs. Let me explain how.

When you have a weak muscle, you can exercise it to make it stronger, as long as the muscle is not permanently damaged. Of course you have know specifically what muscle you want to target with exercise and how you perform the exercise. For example if your right bicep muscle is weak, you wouldn’t perform abdominal crunches because the abdominal muscles have nothing to do with your biceps.

Similarly when an area of the brain is not working correctly, it also can be “exercised” via various forms of Brain-Based Therapy.

“Your brain is composed of parts. There is the Cerebellum in the back of the brain and the Frontal Lobe located behind your forehead. Between those two parts there is the Parietal Lobe, an Occipital Lobe, and a Temporal Lobe working on either side of the brain. Let’s think of them as appliances in your kitchen. Just as each appliance has a very specific job to do, so do the parts of your brain.

Sometimes these appliances break down. If you open up your refrigerator and find that your milk has spoiled and that your ice cream has melted, then you know your refrigerator needs some tending to. Similarly, when a part of the brain malfunctions, the associated body area or function that the brain controls will not work the way it is supposed to. You may begin to notice that you have severe headaches or problems with balance, vision changes, or trouble getting your words out while speaking to someone. If you are unaware of what part of the brain controls these abilities then you will not know where the weak link in your brain is located or what to do about it.

Brain-Based Therapy is a series of natural procedures used to identify, exercise, and strengthen weak parts of the brain by using sensory stimulation. It begins with a functional neurological examination of the brain to find out where any weak links are located. When you come to see me there are certain things you may do or feel that let me know your brain is breaking down in particular areas. Once I know where the weakness is I am able to use natural procedures to stimulate very specific areas of your brain in order to restore function.

The human brain can be damaged just like the skin of our bodies can. If we get a scrape on our arm it is called a lesion. The brain can also get lesions. When this happens it is because an area of tissue has been damaged through disease or injury. There are many types of brain lesions, some relatively harmless and some very dangerous. There are soft lesions and there are hard lesions.

Typically hard brain lesions are cared for medically. When you have a hard lesion, such as a stroke, you obviously know you have a problem and probably already saw a medical doctor for evaluation and treatment. Soft or functional lesions occur when the brain is not receiving enough stimulation and in turn not getting enough activity. Soft lesions cannot be visualized with typical imaging methods such as MRI or Cat Scans. A functional assessment must be used to evaluate a soft lesion – we call this type of assessment a functional neurological examination. Think of it this way: take a photograph of a fully functioning, partially open door in your home. Next take a picture of a door that sticks when you close it, but photograph it in the partially opened position, like you did with the normally operating door. Now look at the pictures. You cannot tell them apart. You would have to put each door through all its actions (opening, closing, locking, etc.) while video taping the activity to qualify as a functional test for the doors. That is why an MRI of a brain that has a soft lesion looks normal – it is not a functional test.

We must exercise our brains just like we need to exercise our bodies or the brain will deteriorate. Brain Based Therapy seeks to reverse these soft lesions through stimulating your senses and training your brain to be active and healthy again. This ability for the brain to change, by adding new connections is called neuroplasticity.

Let’s take a moment to understand the great importance of your central nervous system. The central nervous system is comprised of your brain and spinal cord and it is the MASTER CONTROL CENTER and information distribution system of your body. It needs both fuel and activation to survive, thrive, and recover from damage. Sometimes it does not get an adequate dose of these two very important elements and that is when degeneration begins to occur.

Brain-Based Therapy takes into account that the nervous system is a sensory driven system. Each one of your senses is an input to your brain. Your brain receives signals from your senses and responds based on the information it receives. Without input there will be no output. Without stimulation the brain loses its ability to control very important functions and it is these malfunctions that produce many of the symptoms in chronic illnesses, such as fibromyalgia, chronic pain, anxiety and ADD.

The brain depends upon crucial inputs to maintain healthy functioning and that is why Brain-Based Therapy is so important and effective. In my office I use sight, sound, touch, movement, vibration, heat, cold, light, and other natural tools to interrupt abnormal patterns within your brain and bring them back into balance. By using Brain-Based Therapy we are able to strengthen the brain and effectively restore its many pathways and connections.

Many doctors, such as myself, use specialized tests to measure if you are receiving enough fuel and activation to your central nervous system. If you are not receiving an adequate amount of activation we are able to improve the health of your brain by using specific exercises and stimulations that target these weak areas. This is what Brain-Based Therapy is all about! We also thoroughly check your body chemistry with lab tests for any factors that would interfere with good fuel delivery to your central nervous system and then go about correcting these factors.

The combination of Brain-Based Therapy and functional metabolic testing and treatment is called Neuro-Metabolic Therapy (NMT). NMT is what allows clinician like me to help patients with chronic health conditions when others have given up or failed to dig deep enough to get to the root of a patient’s chronic condition nightmare. There is hope with these specific rehabilitation therapies!”1

Many years of research have been conducted on one form of Brain-Based Therapy called neurofeedback. As one of my mentors and colleague recently stated, “I am working with a boy right now. He is twelve, on six medications about 6 months ago. He is very angry, has full-blown ADHD and is very impulsive. His parents told me they may need to institutionalize him. After six months of a gluten-free diet, neurofeedback and cerebellar exercises and the kid is almost unrecognizable. He is now well-mannered, well-behaved, and down to one medication. His dad got emotional this morning telling me how thankful he is for what I do. What a difference we make in the lives of these people.”

In summary, many cases of fibromyalgia, chronic pain, anxiety and ADD respond well to functional neurology and even better with functional neurology, diet changes, specific supplementation and neurofeedback.

The best part; these cutting-edge treatment methods are drug-free and effective. Tell someone you know who is suffering needlessly to check out Brain-Based Therapy

References:

1. Johnson, Karl R.O.S., DC. “WHAT IS JOHNSON BRAIN-BASED THERAPY?” Reclaim Your Life; Your Guide To Revealing Your Body’s Life-Changing Secrets For Renewed Health. Charelston: CreateSpace, 2012. 13-17. Print.

Source by Dr. Karl R.O.S. Johnson, DC