A few years ago I attended a work conference and one of the breakout sessions was on the brain. I don’t remember much about the session except that the brain does not like multitasking and the speaker advising that a lot of what is known about the brain was discovered in the last decade. The imaging and testing available has made a huge difference in brain health and diagnosis. She also shared that foods and activities can make a difference in brain health. This goes right along with my interest in healthy eating and whole body health. When an article appears online about brain foods and brain health I tend to click on them.
I can’t remember if that time we had an ADHD diagnosis or just worried about a speech delay. In the last couple of years ADHD has been a big topic of conversation in our household. How to treat… if its real… can removing red dye really make a difference? How much medication and is it really just lack of will power? Oh the things I have googled. Maybe it is just too much sugar. All this, while living in denial of my own battles with ADHD.
I started with looking further into ADHD when I downloaded Healing ADD by Dr. Amen. He shares his thoughts and advice on brain scans and describes 7 different types of ADD. My biggest take away from his book and youtube videos is that ADHD is real and it can be displayed visually in the form of scans. The connections and processing in our brains can be very different and yet all fall under the umbrella of ADHD. In his book he used prescriptions to treat along with other forms of holistic health like omegas and probiotics.
In 2019 we felt like we needed a second level review on the ADHD diagnose and medication treatment. We wanted to try alternative therapies to help address the issues. Using prescription medication is still not our preferred method since it can be … out of stock… have side effects…become addictive….
We’ve been told that you can get a blood test that can help determine what type of medication will work best. That was about the extent of additional testing we were told about.
In our search for play therapy-both therapists mentioned Neurofeedback/Neurotherapy. Each Dr. referred us to a different person who is trained to perform Neurotherapy.
It sounded interesting but a bit confusing on how this non-medicine approach should retrain the brain and help reduce some of the focus issues present in ADHD patients. It can work with young or old and can eliminate the need for prescription medication. In my head i’m thinking… new age and not covered by insurance.
Yesterday we had our first meeting with a Dr. He shared a lot of information and it was really exciting to think this could be a good option for our family.
This is how I understand the process based on our 1 Hr call yesterday.
It starts with brain mapping called Qeeg- this is where you wear an electromagnetic cap thing that can read the frequency of the brain when you complete/ view certain things. That session is about 30 mins and produces a 35 page report. The report will detail the quality and duration of the connections in your brain. This initial test is 300.00 but is typically 700 with other practices.
The report is then reviewed and evaluated by the Dr. This will be what determines the therapy plan. As in the # of visits and the type of focused training that will take place.
The therapy itself is very targeted, so it can be for emotional regulation, stress, anxiety or sleep. EMF frequency is used to stimulate the brain in the focused area. This creates a new connection that the brain will then be trained to use moving forward. It is non invasive and the patient doesn’t feel or notice much during the sessions. A person will typically need 15-30 sessions to make the lasting connections and each session is about the price of a typical play therapy session. 125.00
Insurance: it pretty much sounds like some companies may reimburse but the patient will do all the paperwork. It can be covered by flexible spending accounts. The office we spoke to said they offer reduced pricing for bulk session purchasing. I think he said 10 sessions for 800.00 So we’re talking quite a bit of money upfront to get something like this started.
It also made me think — what if your brain got in the hands of the wrong person? Then when I heard EMF frequency… isn’t that in the news about cellphones or something? Flash back to movies about subliminal messaging…oof the cost…
Looking at our FSA spending for this year-we’ve spent 1507.64 that is on medical and pharmacy combined. Yes, this is for stuff like ear drops from an earache etc but it does show that we’ve spent quite a bit medically. In the past we hardly had any medical expenses… in fact I never even had an FSA until a 3 years ago. I just paid for glasses and such out of pocket.
When we take into account therapy sessions are 120.00 per session and we did 5 weeks of sessions that is about the price of 10 sessions for neurotherapy.
Writing my thoughts out here online, it appears that if we wanted to make this happen we could financially. I think I’m going to do a little more research online to see if there are posted medical journals/papers on the results and safety. It honestly seems too good to be true, yet not really talked about.
Here is a link to the organization that spoke at the conference. Looking at the site today- this organization uses MRI technology. I’m going to reach out the the prospective Dr. and ask about the differences in approach.