Posted by KaraS on July 19, 2005, at 17:25:01
In reply to Re: got an rEEG, posted by ravenstorm on July 18, 2005, at 20:55:45
First of all, I like Dr. Emory. I think he's caring, a bit eccentric and really quite brilliant. So far I like working with him. It's sometimes hard to get an answer quickly from his staff because you can rarely get a live person on the line, but that's been my only complaint so far.
Today we went over the rEEG results. He loves going over them with you. They're impossible for someone like me, who hasn't been trained, to fully comprehend, and he isn't great at explaining things (though he really enjoys doing it). I got enough out of it so that I get the gist of the results and the rationale behind his prescriptions for me though.
I thought initially that the test results would be fed in to a computer which would show what medications worked for other people with similar brainwave patterns. But I don't think it's quite like that. It's more that the rEEG measures the various brainwaves (alpha, beta, theta) in various regions of the brain. It measures voltage and something else. He sees where you're deficient and where you have too much of both of these factors in all areas of the brain. He then prescribes accordingly as he or his database knows which medications effect which brainwaves in specific areas and in which direction. For instance, he knew that doxepin, the medication I take a small amount of now, would decrease the voltage of the alpha waves in a certain part of my brain.
I thought I'd have a very low voltage brain because I have no energy or motivation and I'm slow thinking but It turned out that I have a very high voltage brain in many areas i.e. alpha waves in a particular area were extremely high. The betas were extremely low in a particular area. He could see why the SSRI medications didn't help me much. They took care of my anxiety but they actually hindered me in other ways (for instance they would raise the alphas in a particular region where they were already way too high).
He could knew that I need stimulation - that I have an attention deficit problem. He said, "I bet no one has noticed that before" - referring to the attention deficit problem. I told him that I had but no other doctors had. So he's prescribing dexedrine for me. I started on Ritalin a while back but it put me to sleep so I thought that amphetamines wouldn't work either. He said that Ritalin wouldn't work for me according to the rEEG but that these should. We'll see. I'm crossing my fingers.Lastly, to address my anxiety he recommended a mood stabilizer. He thought Klonopin would be a good choice for me to try first as it has mild mood stabilizing properties. He also mentioned Lamictal and Topomax could be tried instead.
He doesn't think I'll even need an antidepressant. He said that the only one he could even see prescribing for me would be Wellbutrin. I didn't tolerate that well when I tried it a few years back anyway though I'd be willing to try it again if necessary. I asked him about an MAOI for me and he said that they would be much too high voltage for me. It's difficult for me to understand how I can be so high voltage and still need stimulants but I suppose not having enough dopamine available to me is a separate issue from voltage.
Anyway, I'm encouraged so far. We'll see what happens as I try his recommendations.Kara
poster:KaraS
thread:510796
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050718/msgs/530203.html