Good Morning!

If you look our your windows right now there is a glorious pink and blue sunrise. I would take a photo but it would require going out side in the cold to get a good shot around the houses at the endof the street. So this little picture I snagged off of Yahoo will have to do! Yup - I am not sure what time will post on this message (and please tell me why my computer clock did not advance? ) - but I got up at "oh my gosh" early this morning , on the morning of turning the clocks ahead, after already not getting into bed until the clocks were about to change! Yes , that equals - I got no sleep. Why? Too much in the brain. Hence the visit here. Dumping it out here, seems to help. Yesterday was full of "things", way too many "things" and I was laying in bed this morning trying to tell my brain to shut up so I could do back to sleep, but it wouldn't. Keep telling me to come down here and "write" it down. Many of you that read have found me through other channels, but most that read here are family and friends that want to keep in touch, and my main purpose of the blog is just journalling for myself. Looking back over the last year of journalling is a hilarious journey to me, and one I am very glad i took the time to write down and post pictures. I encourage any of you to do it even if you never "go public" as I did. (well the page is private but I have allowed many of you in to read about our lives)

Yesterday - we received the long awaited results of K.'s "Brain Map", or QEEG as they are officially called. The test consists of her putting on an EEG cap (this measures the brain electricity or "waves" in her brain) and the activity of her brain was measured at rest, eyes open and closed, then doing a task. This information is then compared to 20 years of data collected on the "average" brain activity of a comparable age group of right handed girls, and the differences are noted. With the ADD diagnosis, and even with her medications, K. has continued to struggle in school, and just not seem to get the benefit of the meds that we see is C. as well as not tolerating them well - ie the anorexia and headaches. So in my search for more information, I am came across (also a few years ago but did not pursue it) information on what is called "neurobiofeedback" and started reading. http://www.isnr.org/information/index.cfm ,also http://www.isnr.org/ADHD.cfm is a great info area. This is the site where I got the best information and also the link to the psychologist we visited. Neurobiofeedback is essentially "retraining" the brain to use the proper waves and the proper times. And not only ADD, depression, biopolar, addictions, abuse etc. The research goes back 20 years, and the results are amazing, according to the research I have read. We discussed it with K. and left the decision up to her, and she was all for pursuing it. It is a benign therapy that does not hurt in anyway, and gives her, according to the research and the results our therapist has been getting, a 80 to 90 % success rate , which includes better performance in school and being off of medication....so ...........they identify on the areas of her brain that are not functioning as they should be, and customize a brain biofeedback program to target them.

Imagine this - we walk into a room, and in front of us is a 6 ft by 6 ft display board, literally COVERED with the results, which are colored "maps" (which look like circles") showing the activity is K.'s brain - where and how much. We were actually looking at pictures of K.'s brain at a neurological level , as close to seeing inside as we would ever get. I was floored. 36 square feet of information right in front of us! If any of you that know me know me well enough to understand how much I loved that! Love information! Anyway I digress - so for the next hour and a half this wonderful therapist patiently took us through explaining the different areas of the brain they looked at, what each one does, how they relate to each other,and finally where K. showed up as problem areas. Suffice it to say, most of it was not surprising to us, as we were pretty confident with her original ADD diagnosis, but we were able to see by areas "lighting up" as to being too much activity or too little. Fascinating stuff.

In order to understand what I am going to explain,and so in a year or two when I read this it makes sense to me , at little brain education. The normal brain give off billions of electrical signals every millisecond, in a number of different wave lengths. Each of those wave lengths has a purpose. Delta waves are associated with sleep, and dissociation from the body etc. Theta waves are feelings, diffuse focus, foggy, creativity, strong sense of being alive (these waves are extremely low in abuse vicitims as there brain has reprogramed itself not to feel - yes at a neurologic level not just psychologic, amazing huh? ) Alpha waves are what he called "idle" (where my friend and I decided last night men spend most of their time ) this is the peaceful calm, relaxed slow moving section. Beta starts to involve concentration and there are four different levels, as you can figure as the number goes up the level of ability to concentrate goes up....beta1 is narrow focus, required for what we would consider "mindless tasks" , things we know well that require attending to, but not much. Up to beta2, is intense focus - this is most often associated with success in academics. This is what you need to focus to learn etc. Tunes out distractions. Then there is beta4 and 5 which are almost hyperfocus. This is where anxieties come in, and being too focused on things or even going into a beta5 which is robotic, autopilot so to speak. he also told us many abuse victims wind up here. They decrease their feeling waves, and get 'stuck" in beta waves becomes their brain has conditioned itself to be on "high guard" all the time. The average human brain will go through the range of these waves through out a day depending on what is required for the task at hand.

Ok- so what? I say. The biggest thing we learned was this - the "typical" ADD brain, when concentration is required does not start to fire enough of the beta waves. Thus the difficulty focusing and concentrating. Here is what learned about K. She just so happens to be in the 10 to 20 % that has the exact opposite problem , but same affect, her brain starts to fire WAY too many of the beta waves and WAY too fast. Not giving enough time for processing of the information. So - as I am sitting there listening to the psychologist explain this, I begin to add 1 + 1 and immediately realize, that we have been giving K. a stimulant medication to INCREASE her beta activity!!! So basically we have been exacerbating the problem for her, when we were believing all along that we were helping! Of course, not only does my kid have to have the problem, she has to be in the rare catagory within the problem. This also explains why C. does so much better on his meds than K. - he is most likely slow beta. I will spare you the emotion that ran through my head on this one, but did ask the psychologist to explain why we saw "some" and I will say some because the reason we were here in the first place was that the meds did not seem to be working well for her. He said, most likely, we were seeing the meds help with the next area of the brain he showed us, which was the motor strip - which in K. was lit up like the Fourth of July. Hence the explaination of the "hyper" part of the diagnosis. The motor area of her brain is so active it interferes with the ability of the rest of her brain to function. So he said most likely if nothing else, the meds were controlling that to a degree (and I will agree with him, when she is not medicated, she is definitely more hyper), thus giving her a little bit more of a chance to process.

He showed us, I think it was 6, areas of K.'s brain including motor, concentration, processing, memory etc that were not "firing" correctly, and then discussed the customized feedback program he would design for her. She will get to put the cap back on, and get this - play goal oriented video games with nothing but her brain! Yup. Her brain. They also combine this with relaxation exercises, that target slowing the brain down, as well as healthy eating habits etc. A well rounded program. I asked why we haven't heard about this before or offered the information with my having to research and go find it. Funding and cost is basically the reason. It is usually an out of pocket expense (and anyone who would like to contribute to the therapy fund for K. is more than welcome to do so! ) We are not even sure where all the money is going to come from at this point, but we feel we owe K. the chance to try it. She is all for it. She hates her medication, and the headaches, and tries to hard to do well. I think it helped her to hear and realize that there is an actual reason for it all, and she does not have to believe all those people who simply tell her she isn't trying hard enough. For now, he suggested leaving her on her meds, because what little they are doing is helping her be able to get through school, and he said he will be able tell with the therapy how her wave levels are coming down, and when to tell us to start decreasing her medication, which is the ultimate goal.

The really wonderful thing that I also have suspected and confirmed today , that this therapist, and his staff are Christian. He believes that God created this wonderful brain, admires the handiwork and gives thanks for the ability to look into and learn more about it. He is also deeply involved in the research and currently writing treatment guides for other psychologists to learn and use in their therapies. My prayer all along has always been that God show us where to go to get the best help and how best to help the kids with their diagnoses. I really feel that we were meant to find this, and thanked God all the way home for the wonderful experience that we had just had. K. is very comfortable there, no anxiety at all, very open to him and their conversations. I jsut wish He would have shown me the way a little sooner. But also humbles me to remember, things happen in His time, in His way, and I need to learn to give more of my worry and anxiety back to Him. I also learned that I should have listened to that little voice that has been talking in the back of my head for nearly two years now, that there was something not right with the medications, and investigate the non-stimulant meds and other options, but I didn't. Hindsite right? Can't go there.

My prayer this morning was that God let me know that this is right, calm my heart and open K's brain and mind to receive the therapy. I feel we owe her the chance to be the best she can be and give her the tools to acheive it, and this is one of them.

Whew. If you are still reading, God bless you! And to the me that looks back on this in a few years - I should probably say to myself - see, you were so worried , it all worked out didn't it? So why were you worrying!?