One Brain's journey

When I was finally diagnosed with ADHD, a process that took a couple of months, I asked the psychiatrist, “Now what?”

He said, “I’m going to start you on some medication trials, personally I would advise you to take a martial art and I would look at getting a personal coach.”

When I inquired further about coaching he gave me a name and phone number and I called the person and set up a first meeting.  The cost at the time, I believe was around $500 a month, which took me aback a bit but within a month or two my earnings were up to the point where it wasn’t too much of a burden.  After about three months though, I started to have second thoughts and in spite of the coach’s suggestion that if I followed the process more closely more earnings would improve, I decided to take a break.  I never went back although I did try to find another coach a few years later.  At that time there were only a few in Toronto that specialized in helping clients who had ADHD.  One took weeks to return a phone call and then suggested, by email, that I call at a specific time and when I did there was no answer.  I decided that he probably also had ADHD and could benefit from his own coach.  I then discussed the matter with a friend and mutual sufferer and in the course of our conversation we came to the conclusion that we both had enough coaching experience to try coaching each other and set up a process to do that and invited others to join us in the experiment in weekly meetings.  We call it peer coaching.  That was some years ago and although we now meet bi-weekly we are still going strong and last meeting added two new people to the group.

So what do we do?  There is actually a fairly rigorous process that we set up.  The meeting begins with someone volunteering to chair the meeting and there is a printed agenda. The meeting begins with each attendant invited by the chair to share on a personal update since the last meeting, new information which any of us might have come across concerning ADHD or anything else in neuroscience that might seem helpful and then what has become one of the most important aspects of the meeting although it wasn’t planned to be that.  We share what we call ADHD moments and victories. This could be any of the things that make our lives miserable from losing the keys to our front door, or the car, to getting the time wrong for an appointment.  What tends to happen is that these little tragedies  have a brighter side in that we get to delight out companions with the stories at out next meeting.  Victories could mean something such as finding a device that attaches to your keychain that beeps when you clap your hands or getting the time wrong for an medical appointment and calling the office to apologize and asking if they might be able to accommodate you later in the day.

I will describe the other elements of peer coaching in my next post and in a subsequent post try to explain why the psychiatrist that diagnosed me suggested I take a martial art.

Recently, I came cross a reference to the Mozart effect and, although the term sounded vaguely familiar, I really didn’t know what it meant and had to read a definition. That was illuminating as it lead back to a reference to a physician named Alfred A. Tomatis and his work with children  with learning disorders and some other crippling neurological problems by improving listening skills.  I was quite familiar with Tomatis. But first to back to the Mozart effect which says that listening to Mozart’s music will increase intelligence by eight to nine points–even if just temporarily. This caused quite a stir in the educational community when it was first revealed some years ago. One State Governor in the U.S. even had each pubic school student in his state supplied with a CD containing classical music. Okay, you run into claims like this on the general topic of education almost every day. However, when I found out much of the original research (actually clinical experience) was performed by Alfred Tomatis who was an ear, nose and throat specialist and used listening therapies (some involved listening to Mozart) to improve learning disabilities in children I became quite intrigued. Some 15 or so years ago when I was working as a management consultant, my firm was contacted by The Listening Centre in Toronto to request some pro bono consulting. I was chosen and went for an initial meeting with the two people who ran the centre. I have forgotten what services they required but I do remember how impressed I was with them as people and the passion they had about their mission to treat children with learning disorders using methods developed by Tomatis. Soon after I left the firm and performed the work for them as an independent consultant waiving any fees. Some time later, a friend came to visit, a man I had shared a flat with many years previous in London. He had become quite a famous actor (instantly recognizable in Dublin if not Toronto or New York) and had actually been passing through Toronto on his way from Vancouver back home to Dublin. Ray suffered from Tinnitus and I knew this was one of the disorders The Listening Centre claimed to be able to treat so I called them and asked if they would see Ray.  They agreed to do the assessment for free but since Ray did not live in Toronto and there were no Tomatis practitioners in Dublin they could only recommend alternative treatment to the “electronic ear” that was at the heart of their regular program.  Well to cut to the point it worked.  Ray went home to Dublin, did the things they recommended (most of which I don’t remember save some things about diet) and got relief from a disorder that had been plaguing him for years.

Now, I know that there are a lot of treatments out there they looked like quackery even a few decades ago that utilize neuroplasticity to effect cures, or at least relief, for ailments that were thought to be permanent.  Why am I writing about this in this post on this blog?  The Mozart effect did not really go anywhere and I’m sure that almost no one now remembers Alfred Tomatis.  The Listening Centre in Toronto fell on hard times, could not pay their rent and closed.  One of the practitioners took up another career while the other followed some interest in the method to Mexico where there was a supportive clientele.  But these days I read daily about miracles involving neuroplasticity. There are people blinded by strokes who can see again, Alzheimer’s patients that have no neurological symptoms, schizophrenics who improve their working memory and become symptom free.  We are on the frontier of many great discoveries but to get there we might have to put away our skepticism and allow ourselves to experience awe and wonder without the dash of skepticism so many of us have developed as adults to prevent disappointment in chasing down blind channels or after miraculous cures.  I say us and I mean me and if I write it hear perhaps I will be a little more likely to follow the advice of Herbert Spencer who wrote:  “There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance–that principle is contempt prior to investigation.”

Today I came across reference to a new therapy called the Dynamic Neural Retraining System (DNRS) that employs the principles of neuroplasticity to cure chemical sensitivities, Cronic Fatique Syndrome, Fibromialgia even Gulf War Syndrome. At first glance it looks a bit like snake oil but on closer examination it caught my interest.  The system was developed by Annie Hopper whose life was devastated by multiple chemical sensitivities that resulted eventually in the lose of her job, her family and even her home.  She began to educate herself in various approaches to treatment and in the process noticed that many of her symptoms were similar to those of persons suffering from Acquired Brain Injury (ABT).  ABT usually results from a blow to the head. She developed DNRS based on methods used to treat ABT and now conducts three-day workshops to provide participants with enough familiarity with the system to carry on treatment on their own. Her website has many testimonials attesting to its effectiveness.  At the time that her life was overwhelmed by these chemical sensitivities, Hopper had a therapy practice employing what is described in her bio as core belief counselling.  I experienced something known as Core Belief Reengineering (CBR) about 15 years ago with some success but nowhere in her bio does it say that the counselling Hopper did was based in CBR.  However, I did make this leap.  About 15 years ago many of my friends were going throiugh the process of CBR with the only practitioner in Eastern Canada. I became intrigued. At the time I was a sucker for anything except chemicals or pharmaceuticals to make me feel better. I had just exited a relationship that in many ways was the most normal I had ever experienced and I was about to turn 50. There were a number of other things going on but suffice it to say I was an anxious mess. I have had anxiety most of my adult life in addition to the other numerous mental health disorders I have made reference to in past posts but pn top of all that I began to experience symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)–probably because of the high level of anxiety. OCD is a devastating disorder and I count myself fortunate that I only had symptoms for a short time.  When my friends doing CBR started to report life-changing results I decided to do it.  I was also intrigued by the term reengineering. I was working as a management consultant at the time and Business Process Reengineering (BPR) was all the rage in the business world with huge global corporations, such as Ford Motor Company, were being transformed by it.  The idea of applying similar principles in a therapeutic model was most intriguing..  Towards the end of my therapy sessions a number of things happened. A chronic pain in my left hip, the result of a shortened ilioibial band, disappeared. The OCD symptoms also went away and then miraculously my asthma seemed to be cured. Now I’m a skeptic and in spite of what I was experiencing, I was hard-pressed to ascribe  these changes to CBR. The disappearance of asthma symptoms I thought could also be due to a new mattress, new pillows and new bedding. I knew, at the time, that one of the main causes of asthma is dust mites and with a new bed I would have been dust mite free.  Having both allergies and ADHD I have seen many different kinds of alternative treatments and most of them leave me cold to the point where am long past any interest in exploring any of them that don’t seem to be backed by solid scientific research such as Cogmed Working Memory Training. Having said this there are few alternative therapies rooted in sound science available to address mental health issues that exploit neuroplaticity other than Cogmed. In fact, DNRS is one for the first I have come across. Taking this into account plus my own experience with CBR and my rather grudging acceptance that some really benficial changes did happen, if not as a result of CBR, at least simultaneous with doing the therapy, I am intrigued and will write further about this in future posts.

I have been a fan of natural health products since I managed to lower my blood pressure with Omega 3 capsules and so am a little more friendly to reports such as this one from a study conducted at the Center for Learning and Memory at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Guosong Liu, the center’s director, found that magnesium, “led to significant enhancement of spatial and associative memory in both young and aged rates.” Magnesium is found in some fruits and most leafy vegetables but the study made use of a new magnesium compund–Magnesium-L-threonate (MgT)–but the new compound was just a more efficient way of delivering magnesium to the brain. Mr. Liu said, “Half the population of industrialized countries has a magnesium deficiency which only worsens with age.” He went on to say, “If normal or even higher levels of magnesium can be maintained, we may be able to affect cognitive function.” Mr. Liu is a former professor at MIT in Boston and is co-founder of Magceutics, a California-based company developing pharmaceuticals for the prevention and treatment of age-dependent memory decline and Alzheimer’s disease. He claims that if you consume less than 400 milligrams of magnesium per day, you could be at risk for allergies, asthma and heart disease.

Just last week, I was telling a friend about this research and he mentioned that he had been told by a natural health practitioner to take a magnesium supplement for Restless Leg Syndrome, (RLS) a condition in which, legs at rest, usually when you are just lying down to go to sleep, feel as if they are twitching. I have RLS and thought that perhaps a magnesium supplement would improve my cognitive functioning as well as my sleep if it could stop that dreadful sensation of leg twitches. I would love to report at the end of this post that I immediately went out to the health food store and got some but…I forgot.

Once again a study, this time at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, examined role of working memory, and some other cognitive functions, in the development of schizophrenia. This time they were studying the pattern of cognitive disorders schizophrenics exhibit as children long before they have symptoms of schizophrenia. Duke researchers drew on the results of a long-term study conducted in New Zealand with more than 1,000 participants and found a consistent pattern of developmental difficulties starting at age seven. Co-author of the study, Richard Keefe, director of Duke’s Schizophrenia Research Group said, “These kids are lagging behind to begin with and they continue to fall behind.”

There were two patterns emerging:

1. Children who later developed schizophrenia had early deficits in verbal and visual learning, reasoning and conceptualization and these remained as they grew older

2. They also developed more slowly than their peers in processing speed, attention, visual-spatial problem solving and working memory

How all this ends up as schizophrenia is still unknown but another co-author in the study, Avshalom Caspi, who is the Edward M. Arnett Professor of Psychiatry at Duke, speculates that a child who struggles to make sense of the world becomes more socially isolated or more delusional.

Keefe said that eventually he hoped that they might be able to intervene, perhaps with anti-psychotic medication, in childhood and head off the adult psychosis. The study suggests that adult psychosis doesn’t just emerge fully formed but has early roots in the developmental process.

I have thought for a long time that schizophrenia is one of the saddest disorders as it seems as if one’s mind turns against oneself but there is another disorder that it is even sadder where one’s mind does something quite similar. That disorder is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). One of the required symptoms for a diagnosis of OCD is that the person must be conscious of their obsessive or compulsive behavior but be helpless to do anything about it. I know at least one person who has OCD and my heart goes out to her. Many times when she is exhibiting symptoms, she is in tears. I have, for a brief time in the past, had OCD symptoms and so have some understanding of how this plays out. In my case the behavior was checking and it was like I had forgotten whether I had locked a door again and again and again. I had, as a child, seen my father do this (so maybe it’s a family trait) and at the time a part of me marveled at the fact that I was repeating this simple action so many times. In my case it passed and has not returned. It happened at a time of great stress so I do have a worry that it could, at some point, return but the person that I was describing earlier has it most of the time and spends much of that time locked in her apartment because it is so painful for her to go outside. Her behavior is also checking but it involves looking at every scrap of paper she comes across to see if one of her friends or family has left her a personal message. A mutual friend who was trying to help her by walking with her one time asked her, “Do you really think that a friend would leave a note for you on the street in the gutter.” The friend with OCD just looked down and cried.

I am so glad that my own symptoms were so short lived but I also hope that this new study will lead to the possibility of earlier intervention and perhaps head of the disorder–at least for schizophrenia.