After a long day seeing patients, I plopped down on the couch and decided to watch CNN news for a few minutes before getting up and making myself dinner. I had no TV guide since I rarely turn on the television, but I assumed it was the news hour I would be watching. Instead, I saw Sanja Gupta, neurosurgeon and medical consultant for CNN, earnestly apologizing to the American people for his outspoken stand against medical marijuana. From that moment, I stayed glued to the TV for the entire hour.

Here is the link to watch Dr. Gupta talking about why he changed his mind about marijuana:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/08/health/gupta-changed-mind-marijuana/

I watched Dr. Gupta talk about his two years tracking down research revealing amazing benefits of medical marijuana and all the many conditions it could successfully treat or mitigate. These conditions include seizures, PTSD, anxiety disorders, insomnia, symptoms from cancer treatment, chronic nausea, cachexia (“wasting syndrome”), AIDS, glaucoma, and neuropathic pain—as found in multiple sclerosis and other conditions where nerve pain is involved.

This news was not new to me, nor is it new to most of the readers of this blog. I have been following patients on medical marijuana for the past two decades. But to have a prominent mainstream doctor come forward in praise of the medicinal value of cannabis is certainly newsworthy.

Last year, Lesley and I had talked about taking the stabilization of her brain to the next level. I introduced her to the idea of CBD-enriched hemp oil. Lesley balked at the idea of taking marijuana. She recounted how horribly toxic she felt when she smoked marijuana with her friends in the past. I gave her a crash course in medical marijuana and explained the difference between the CBD, which helps calm the brain and has many healing properties, and the THC used to alter consciousness and get stoned—something of no interest to us.

At my suggestion, Lesley watched the CNN series called “Weed” about medical marijuana, presented by Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Here is a link to Part I of the series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJafxCqrfSo

Part I of the “Weed” series showcases the story about young children with Dravet Syndrome, characterized by intractable seizures, up to a hundred a day, caused by a genetic mutation. The pharmaceutical medications are not effective at stopping the seizures and leave the babies in a stupor.

The Stanley Brothers of Colorado, in the business of growing marijuana, grew a special kind of marijuana, bred to be high in CBD (cannabidiol) and low in THC (tetrahydrocannibinol)—the component that is psychoactive and gets the user high.

They made a tincture out of the CBD-enriched hemp oil and gave the drops to the parents of the children with seizures for them to administer. The results were astounding; the frequency of the seizures decreased dramatically.

One of the first patients to try out the Stanley Brothers’ CBD-enriched hemp oil was a five-year-old girl named Charlotte Figi. Once she began taking the drops of cannabis oil, Charlotte’s grand mal seizures decreased from around 300 a week to one or two a month. Charlotte has been immortalized in the name given to the product she uses, called Charlotte’s Web, now in high demand.

Since Charlotte’s Web has virtually no THC (.1%), it is sold legally online at www.cwbotanicals.com To try it out, Lesley ordered a one ounce bottle of 500 mg of the CBD oil. She began with four drops, then slowly worked up to a dropperful under her tongue twice a day. Within a few days, she noticed a sense of calm. Her pervasive anxiety disappeared for the first time since as far back as she could remember.

For the past year, Lesley has had no seizures. And she has stopped using her Valium. The CBD oil has helped to significantly dampen her response to stress and has also helped her fall asleep at night.

There is one more resource to draw on which I wager will make a huge difference for Lesley and even help repair the damaged areas in her brain. That resource is called neurofeedback.

I used neurofeedback successfully after chronic exposure to toxic chemicals damaged my brain while working in a clinic in the early 1990s. I was exposed to high levels of glutaraldehyde—a disinfectant related to formaldehyde, used to clean the instruments. I was also exposed to monthly applications of Dursban (chlorpyrifos), an organophosphate pesticide known to cause brain damage and now banned from indoor use.

Once a month I noted in my journal that I felt like I had the flu, but without a fever. I ached all over. Trying to be a good detective to determine why my mind and body were rapidly deteriorating, I discovered that the spray schedule directly correlated with my journal entries describing how sick I felt.

Among the many horrible symptoms I developed, the most frightening was confusion and loss of memory. I would read a page in a book and then have no clue what I had just read.

In my desperate attempt to regain brain function, I searched every avenue for answers. Neurofeedback had just been introduced to Santa Fe by a practitioner who was helped with her own cognitive issues by using neurofeedback on herself.

Even though the equipment was somewhat primitive compared to what is available now, the sessions were successful at restoring my cognitive brain function. Of course, I also left the toxic building—along with conventional medicine—and never looked back.

Neurofeedback is like biofeedback for the brain. After having electrodes attached to your head, you sit in front of a computer screen that displays your real time brain waves by means of an EEG machine. While simply watching your brain waves on the screen, you can actually train your brain to control its electrical activity so that the calming wave forms become more prevalent.

When the screen shows a desirable wave form, you get instant feedback in the form of some sort of signal that lets you know you’re on the right track. Your brain responds quickly to the prompt and understands what it’s supposed to do—without you having to do anything special except look at the screen. The conscious mind is not involved.

Special software can map the brain to determine areas of the brain that are damaged and to track the improvement. This non-invasive technique can be used on any type of seizure, including generalized seizures, absence seizures, or partial complex seizures.

Neurofeedback is also effective in treating traumatic brain injuries, both minor and major, early dementia, Parkinson’s disease, ADHD and, as in my case, for chemical injuries to the brain.

For a simple explanation of neurofeedback, I suggest you open this link

http://www.epilepsyhealth.com/biofeedback.html

Here is a link from the National Institute of Health with a review article concluding that all the research data show significant reductions in seizure activity using neurofeedback, especially for patients who do not respond to medications or cannot tolerate them:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19715180

In Santa Fe, we have Dr. Pamela Bell who has a successful neurofeedback practice I can refer patients to. She has been doing this work for 18 years. Her practice is located in the offices of 360 Medicine, 66 Avenida Aldea, SF, NM 87507, drbell@optimalbodybrain.com, 505-699-8311. www.optimalbodybrain.com

The best site for finding a board certified neurofeedback provider in your area is www.bcia.org. These individuals have kept up with continuing education and passed a rigorous exam.

Feel free to print out this blog post and share with anyone you think would benefit from this information.

Here’s to your good health!

NOTE TO MY PATIENTS: I will be gone most of the month of December. Please don’t wait until the last minute to get what you need before I leave. For medication refills, simply ask the pharmacy to fax the refill request to me. The faxes will be forwarded to the doctor covering for me while I’m gone. Information will be on the answering machine.

Where will I be? I can hear you wondering. In Thailand, at an elephant rehabilitation sanctuary in Chiang Mai. I will be blogging about the trip next week and telling you all the exciting details.