Brain Therapy Center

I personally took it upon myself to find out what this company had to offer my family and myself.

Let me give you a little more background on myself and my personal life. I am the proud mother of two of the most beautiful kids my eyes have ever seen (says every single mom, lol). Well my youngest is a 5-year-old little boy by the name of Bruce (yes! He is baby batman). A few years ago, he was officially diagnosed with Autism. He is the shallow end of the spectrum, but he is enough into the spectrum to be officially diagnosed. Along with being diagnosed with autism, he has also been diagnosed with Global developmental delay, Hypomyelination, a slight replica of chromosome 12, and hypotonia among many other diagnoses, but the ones id like to focus on here are those.

Let me give you a brief explanation of those diagnoses.

Global Developmental Delay: this technically just means that what would take a person who falls under the spectrum of normal development 1 second, 1 minute, 1hour, 1 day,1 week, 1 month,1 year; how ever long the time frame might be… for a person who has global (meaning general or all) developmental delay it might take them twice the time or longer to learn, process, or do whatever task at hand. Normally those who fall under this diagnosis are treated with therapy.

• Occupational Therapy

• Physical Therapy

• Speech Therapy

And over time and with constant stimulation by the therapist, caretakers, teachers, and those involved in the lives of those who are diagnosed, progress with no exact or precise time frame is observed and obtained.

Hypomyelination: Hypomyelination: an abnormally low amount of myelination (the process by which an insulating layer of fatty tissue develops surrounding nerve cells). A number of conditions (hypomyelinating disorders) are characterized by an abnormally low amount of myelination.

Myelination is the formation of a myelin sheath. Key facts of the myelin sheath and myelination. Myelination. Produced by Schwann cells for peripheral axons. Produced by oligodendrocytes for central axons.

Myelin sheath is located in the brain. Myelin sheath is responsible for sending the electrical messages from your brain to other parts of your body at rapid speed. From blinking to waving to just about anything that you can possibly think of. Well my son has hypomyelination; “hypo” meaning “less of” this production for myelin sheath. So, in simple terms he has less than what he is supposed to have for his age. After two MRI scans we do know that the production for his myelin sheath in progressing. Maybe not at the rapid speed desired but progress is what we aim for. The best example I have for full comprehension of this is the following;

Imagine that you want to write a letter two to of your friends who live thousands of miles away from you. One letter will get there via a mail carrier that uses a plane to deliver the letter and another carrier that will personally hand deliver the letter but on foot. Both letters will eventually arrive, but one will have arrived while the other one will still be on its way.

The letter that arrives the fastest is representation of the brain that has the proper amount of myelin production produced. The other letter that gets delivered on foot represents the part of the brain with little to no myelin sheath production.

Hopefully that made it easier to understand.

Slight replica of chromosome 12: deals with his lower extremities which ties into his other diagnosis of hypotonia which is muscle weakness on his legs.

Bruce officially started walking at 2-3 years of age and we were lucky enough that his PT Sylvi refused to use assistive devices on him which rendered him to be able to become strong enough. (If granted permission I will do a peace on this amazing woman on a later date)

OK back to the subject at hand.

I made my appointment to see what this therapy center had to offer Bruce and myself. (My mom drove us) So I went in and first met with the Dr. Evelyn Assor. Who is the main doctor involved in this procedure and the one who would and will be running this said procedure. She gave me a packet that I will attach pictures of to this post. ( I am a nursing student and my second nature is to take notes, so I did…. Something that to my opinion didn’t seem to please the Doctor too much because she kept telling me the information was in the packet and that I didn’t have a need to write it)

She began talking to me about MeRT and TMS

Magnetic Transcranial

E (eeg & ecg) Magnetic

Resonance Stimulation

Therapy (been around for 12+ years)

She did explain that this procedure IS NOT FDA approved for persons with AUTISM (first red flag)

She also stated that this process/procedure is a ONE FITS ALL (second red flag)

Then proceeded to give me an explanation of brain waves (adding the document she gave in the packet)

Said that they would focus on the ALPHA WAVE and that they would do an ECG which would only be done in their office (ECG can be done in other places FYI) but I figured ok maybe they want to have these records first hand so, you could say I understood. I was given an explanation on how she was going to use that ECG to see the ALPHA and how it shows on the posterior, central, and frontal part of the brain. Based on those results they would determine the intensity and kind of treatment to be administered.

I was then informed about the types of treatment, if I chose to proceed with treatment which according to the little to literally no knowledge she had on Bruce. I would be proceeding with.

Trial is 1 week: but the progress that might or might not be made with this trial might NOT be permanent.

The doctor then trailed off to talk about this mission she has been going on to make these treatments more accessible to her clients because she knows that a week I not enough to see any actual progress. So she has been trying to speak to her sources to make the trial 2 weeks long so that there is a fair trial for everyone. (ok that seems fair) Then she said that if given the two weeks then to complete the whole treatment what the client would need is another two weeks for the progress to be permanent.

But as of right now:

1 week trial of the treatment ($1500.00)

Stage 2; 4 weeks ($8000.00)

(but she also stated that she has reoccurring clients who even after having said completed treatment done keep coming back until they reach a point where they reach plateau)

So and this is in my word my own thoughts and opinions. So does this treatment actually work? Is this just for the business? How do you know when one has reached this said limit where they wont evolve any further? Why do people keep coming back even knowing that this treatment is not FDA approved?

So many questions and no answers….

Side effects (this is where I became more concerned)

LONG TERM side effects according to the Dr. “there are none!” (red flag)

SHORT TERM side effects

1. Headaches (a given) since the brain is being stimulated NOT invasive but still stimulated magnetically. Which is a worry for mothers who like me their child is NONVERBAL

2. SEIZURES 1 out of 100k chance and compared it to video games where supposedly the chances of a seizure are “higher”. The doctor state that these seizures are “self-limited” and “should stop as soon as the stimulation stops” (key word SHOULD meaning not 100 percent sure that they will completely stop) (BIG RED FLAG)

3. EUPHORIA said that one mother described her child as a “Tasmanian devil himself”

4. FATIGUE/ INCREASE and IMPROVEMENT in sleep

We then spoke about “SLEEP HYGIENE” and “BLUE LIGHTS” that interrupt and cancel out melatonin production which means NO SLEEP.

We then spoke about schedules for treatment and I said id think about it.

Personally, this treatment is not one I would personally choose for my son given his already existing conditions. Which I had to explain to her what my knowledge of them was. The doctor was a very professional and very polite woman. The last two tid bits that made me reconsider were the following.

• I was charged 100.00 for a consult that was supposed to be for my son, that she saw for 2 minutes (not even) sitting in my car. All I got was an anatomy lesson on the brain and on a product NOT FDA APPROVED for the service I seek.

• I personally respect everyone has their own beliefs and disbeliefs, but the fact that she felt it was necessary to tell me “she didn’t believe in GOD was completely and utterly unnecessary”. Which I later found amusing because my mother a proud GOD loving woman like kept preaching to her from the car talking about her faith. To the doctor’s response “amen” seemed a bit off to me.

If you have any questions or concerns, please leave them down below and I will answer to the best of my ability.