Alternative Medicine Practitioners
If you are like most people, you are leary of Alternative Medicine practices (i.e., chiropractor, acupuncture, homeopathy, kinesiology, etc.). We were, too! However, after 4 1/2 years of being no closer to a cause for our daughters seizures, much less a solution, we thought, "What can it hurt, let's try something different." And we are so glad that we have!
When someone has a seizure, traditional doctors are trained to test the brain - CT scans, MRIs, EEGs, a variety of blood tests, and even possibly a spinal tap to check the spinal fluid for illness such as meningitis. Our daughter has endured all of this, some of it multiple times. EVERY test was perfectly normal, whether it was performed right after a seizure, or weeks after a seizure. In the meantime, we have kept medicating her to "control" the symptom (i.e., the seizures). (For the record, we are still in this stage as she needs to be seizure-free for a long period of time before weaning her off her seizure meds.)
It wasn't until we visited a kinesiologist that we finally began to find the cause - her pituitary gland wasn't working properly causing some of her hormones to be out of balance, which in turn has led to her partial seizures. She also is apparently chemically sensitive and has an accumulation of pesticides which are neurotoxins that also triggers seizures. (The pesticides are discussed in detail under Look at Your Environment.)
So we've been treating her for seizures and testing her brain when all along she hasn't had anything wrong with her brain. She does not have "epilepsy".
We truly hope you will consider alternative medicine very early on in your quest, especially kinesiology! However, we also understand that we've all been programmed to trust our traditional medical practices first. Just a word of advice, other countries that have far fewer illnesses (China, Japan, etc.) use alternative medicine first. "Traditional" medicine as we think of it is used only in emergency, life-saving situations.
If you do consider alternative medicine, please look for certified practitioners in your area. To help you get started, here is a link to the Total Body Analysis team that we took our daughter to: www.hcmionline.com.
