First Do No Harm - Epilepsy Awareness Month

"Check to see if she's breathing." That's what I've been saying and doing for that last 20 years. The Hummingbird has a number of disabilities. Epilepsy being just one of many.
So....if you'd like, join me on a trip down memory lane to her first epileptic seizure.

She was nine months old and sleeping in her car seat chair when her deaf and hard of hearing teacher noticed she wasn't acting right. She was having her first grand mal seizure. DH and I took her to the emergency room and they told us nothing could be done for her (don't you just love doctors sometimes?...not). Come to learn that you can stop seizures through certain medications. She had three more grand mal seizures. I had no other choice but to start her on an anti-convulsant drug, Phenobarbital.

From nine months old to seven years we went through cocktails of drugs taking it to their maximum levels where she was lethargic, listless and falling asleep with food in her mouth. Her eyeballs would shake and quiver from side to side from being toxic on Phenobarbital. And with all of that, her seizures continued to increase. She was having a grand mal seizure everyday. Her grand mals (tonic clonic) consist of extremely hard convulsions. Her body would stiffen and she would throw her head back. Her eyes would either be fixed to the left or right or rolled back into her head. She would often hold her breath until her face turned grey, her fingernails turned blue and her lips turned purple. She would often scream with such a piercing cry, it would have me in tears. It has to be one of the worst situations for a mother to be in, when we can't do a thing for our children to stop the madness. But only to ride it out. She was slowly deteriorating and the doctors couldn't help me except to add another drug on top of the three she was already taking.

I do believe it was an Angel who sat me in front of the television set one October evening in 1997. Jim Abrahams was being interviewed about his son who also had epilepsy and an amazing treatment to control, often cure it. It's through a diet of food, of all things. It took me three years of fighting with our doctors and insurance to agree to start her on the Ketogenic diet. Although, high in fat and protein, the ketogenic diet is a way to control epilepsy. On the second day of starting the diet, the seizures stopped for eight months. It was truly amazing. However, her seizures have come back, but it's about one every six to 12 weeks. I'll take that over grand mals every single day. Along with the ketogenic diet, she's also taking medication although cut by half and at a very low dose.
She is no longer lethargic or listless. I give credit to the Ketogenic diet for giving my daughter's life back to her. She has a smile that is sure to melt your heart.

November is Epilepsy Awareness Month.

Few medical conditions have carried the mystique or generated as much controversy as epilepsy. Coping with societal challenges can be the most difficult part of having epilepsy.

November is Epilepsy Month, a time to promote awareness of epilepsy, the third most common neurological disorder, affecting approximately 2.5 million Americans. It has been estimated that 10% of the American population will experience a seizure in their lifetime. Every year there are nearly 181 thousand newly diagnosed epilepsy cases in the United States, and over 45 thousand of
these are children under 15 years of age.

Epilepsy is defined as the recurrence of two or more unprovoked
seizures requiring long-term treatment with anti-epileptic (AE)
medication.

The focus of Epilepsy Awareness Month is to make people aware of the disorder and promote tolerance and overall understanding for the condition.

An Alternative to Medicine

Growing up in a household where alternative medicine was practiced as another means of healing, it was just a given and I never questioned it. Course as I got older and after a few emergency room visits and a couple of surgeries, allopathic medicine was the way to go.

Until that is, I had my "Hummingbird" and all the disabilities that came with her. She is my blessing but a few of her doctors didn't seem to think so. You'd think you've heard it all, but not so until you've heard what some doctors might say about their patients with severe disabilities. They advised me to have her institutionalized because she would be a burden to us. Another doctor would not provide physical therapy because she would be in a wheel chair all her life anyway so physical therapy wouldn't improve the quality of her life. Doctors tried several different cocktails of drugs to control her epilepsy, only to push it to maximum levels and all the side effects of lethargy and listlessness that came with it. And her seizures continued to increase everyday with hard convulsions. Her doctors had no clue on what to do except to try another drug and increase what she was already taking.

If anyone believes in God or angels, I do believe One sat me in front of my televsion set one evening as I watched a program that controlled epilepsy through food. It's called the Ketogenic Diet. I had to fight tooth and nail with our doctors as they gave me every excuse in the book why my daughter wouldn't qualify for this (high fat) diet. After three years of arguing and constantly hitting a dead end with them, I finally threatened them by taking this matter to the Media....They admitted my daughter into the hospital to start the Ketogenic Diet that following Tuesday. By day two of being on the diet, her seizures stopped dead in its tracks for eight months. Although her seizures have come back, it isn't anywhere near what it was pre-diet. She was having thrashing convulsions everyday before the diet. Now she has one every 6 to 12 weeks. I can live with that. Let me say too, that I do believe that there is a purpose for allopathic medicine, just as there is for alternative medicine. She is taking a drug at a very low dose, along with the diet. And her epilepsy is well under control today.

So because of my experience with these doctors, my trust in them has dwindled just a tad. Because of my daughter's disabilities, the approach her doctors will take concerns me and I have to wonder about the lack of knowledge they have with children of disabilities or other diseases such as cancer, etc. How true it is when they call it a practice. They're literally practicing on us.

Which brings me back to my point that allopathic doctors don't always have the answers. They are afterall only human. But don't tell them that. They'd like to think they're God. Which brings me to alternative medicine, more specifically the human energy system ("life energy"). That being acupuncture. Another form of energy important to human health would be spiritural energy, or chakras.

I suppose no one can have total and complete knowledge, except One. But the fact that Eastern medicine has been practiced for more than 4,000 years and with astonishing results...frankly, I would be crazy not to listen to what they have to say. Which by the way, after understanding how it works, makes more sense to me than Western medicine. Don't get me wrong...western medicine has its place in healing too.

An interview with Richard Gerber, M.D. author of Vibrational Medicine.

"Vibrational medicine is a diagnostic and healing approach to illness using energy in various forms and frequencies. As a therapy, vibrational medicine is the application of different types of energy for healing, including approaches as traditional as X-ray and radiation therapy for cancer, the use of electrical nerve stimulation for treating pain, and electromagnetic field stimulators for accelerating the healing of fractured bones. However, vibrational medicine also covers the more subtle forms of treatment such as acupuncture, homeopathy, flower essences, therapeutic touch, and that sort of genre. "

In his book Vibrational Medicine.

"We are not simply the sophisticated biological mainframe biocomputer of the brain and nervous system. Consciousness is not limited to the brain and central nervous system but is also seen as an integral aspect of the human heart. The old adage of acting from the heart as well as from the brain actually has a basis in science. One might say there exists a form of "heart-based" consciousness that acts from a center of love, compassion, and empathy toward others. In the vibrational-medicine view of human functioning, our emotions are not just the result of neurochemical reactions in the limbic system or the emotional centers of our brain. Our emotions are also influenced by a greater, spiritual energy field that encompasses and influences the entire physical body and nervous system. Our reactions to life are recorded not only in the biochemical patterns of memory storage in the brain but also in the seven major life-energy centers of the body that help to nourish our cells and organs. In the energetic view of the human health, we are more than mere biological engines. We possess bodies that are energized and motivated by the forces of our spirit and soul. We are energetic beings whose ills may be healed not only by surgical procedures and drugs but also by different forms and frequencies of energy. It is this energetic viewpoint of human beings, as more than just flesh-and-blood mechanisms, that is embraced and described by the vibrational medicine model of human functioning."

Acupuncture:

"Acupuncture is the art of needling the body to produce healing. Medical historians have found records documenting the existence of traditional acupuncture treatments in China dating back five thousand years.
....Ancient Chinese acupuncture maps reveal a unique system of specialized points running along channels that feed energy to the organs of the body. Acupuncturists refer to these channels or lines as meridians. Traditional Chinese medicine teaches that the placement of acupuncture needles into specific acupoints affects the movement of ch'i, a unique form of life energy, which flows through the meridian channels to nourish and support the various organs of the body."

Chakras:

"There is another form of energy that is also important to human health. This type of energy might be referred to as "spiritual energy." Through a variety of different forms and pathways, spiritual energy flows into the cells and organs of the physical body. One pathway of spiritual energy flow is critical significance to human health is a unique system of seven major energy centers known as the body's chakras."

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is an extremely fascinating form of healing. I don't think it should be taken lightly or thought of as nonesense. There is so much to the human body that Western medicine has yet to discover. Its funny how scientists won't hesitate to use an EKG and other electrical energy equipment to treat illnesses....but will not give credit to the possibility of that same life energy (acupuncture, chakra) that could be found at the root of the problem.
Perhaps one day Western medicine will be more willing to work together with Eastern medicine. The possibilities of that!

Acupressure points: