National Epilepsy Week 19th May 23rd May 2013 What Treatment Do You Prefer?

National Epilepsy Week this week and there is a reason to celebrate, because this month Epilepsy Action magazine published an article about an epilepsy research project titled; ‘Which treatment would you prefer?’.

A very sensible question, its always nice to be asked what you want!

🙂

you can take part by following the information in this link;
http://www.epilepsy.org.uk/research/take-part/projects-you-can-take-part-in/patient-preferences-treatment-options

BIG THUMBS UP TO THIS PORJECT!

*Actually its full title is ‘People’s Preferences and Priorities for Treatment Options and Outcomes in Epilepsy’ but I like to get to the point.

Mind Over Medicine – Lissa Rankin Book Launch

Lissa gave regular readers of her blog the opportunity read the first excerpt of ‘Mind Over Medicine’ by Lissa Rankin MD available to buy from a link on her blog.

I thought that everyone with an interest in healing (themselves or others) would be interested in her book, the subjects talked in the excerpt I read are; The placebo effect and its physiology, spontaneous remission from cancer, healing and belief. That was only a short extract!

Can’t wait to read the whole thing!

http://lissarankin.com/an-eggy-book-launch-happy-birth-day-mind-over-medicine?inf_contact_key=c0c764d605a6c01aaca9c07c0aa6fa3b21abd769dc36d07e70955d70cdb7a98e

The Five Essentials … For Health & Happiness – Guest Blog

I would like to thank fredphillips.wordpress.com for this guest blog post, which shows, that we humans are not so different; and if you ask the universe (or the internet) you will find people out there who you have a lot in common with. 🙂 thanks fred!

There are five things that are essential for our health and happiness. I call these, oddly enough, The Five Essentials. Catchy, eh?

We are in the midst of enormous suffering on the planet. Rates of disease are spiraling upwards. Bullying is an epidemic, especially in our schools.  Regional and domestic conflicts abound. Many magnificent species are disappearing, or at the risk of disappearing, from the planet.

I could go on and regale you with more depressing stuff, but I really don’t want you to stop reading.

The truth is (and I believe this with all my heart), there is a solution to all this misery and it has to do with … you guessed it  … The Five Essentials. So let’s get right to it. Here they are:

1. To have an awareness of the truths of our existence
2. To feel good about ourselves
3. To heal our emotional pain
4. To eat and drink healthy stuff
5. To get active

Let’s briefly examine each of these essentials to see what they’re all about. (Yes, I know, a couple of them are rather self evident.)

1. To have an awareness of the truths of our existence:

Understanding the truths of who we really are and why we’re really here on the planet (there is little evidence to suggest it has anything to do with getting rich & famous) is critical if we have any hope of changing human behaviour. It certainly inspired me to change mine. I think if we knew for instance, that we live in oneness with God and everything else that exists, we would not treat each other the way we do. We wouldn’t start wars. We wouldn’t exploit the animal kingdom and we wouldn’t pollute. We would let go of fear. We would live with more compassion and love. We would be more altruistic. And we would be more humble.

If you want to know more, immerse yourself in spirituality. Talk to spiritual people. Read books by Eckhart Tolle, Caroline Myss, Wayne Dyer, Neale Donald Walsch and my own book, The History Teacher. Read my spiritual posts at fredphillips.wordpress.com.

2. To feel good about ourselves:

If we all felt good about ourselves … if we all felt lovable, worthy, good enough and empowered … again, we would not behave the way we do. We would not mistreat others. We would be more kind and forgiving. We would be more honest. We wouldn’t put people out of work. We would eat healthier foods.

If you want to change the way you feel about yourself, just be kind.

3. To heal our emotional pain:

We are a society full of unresolved emotional pain. We are loaded with anger, grief, shame, guilt and resentment. If we have any hope of creating peace on earth (one of the reasons we’re here), we need to release this pain. We need to transform it into something healthier and more positive.

If you want to heal your unresolved emotional pain, forgive who you need to forgive, apologize who you need to apologize to, cry if you need to and when you feel anger, scream into a pillow until you feel better.

4. To eat and drink healthy:

With all due respect to those who earn their living working in the fast food, junk food and processed food industries, if we really want to put an end to cancer and all other forms of disease, we need to eat better. We especially need to drastically reduce our sugar intake and eliminate artificial sweeteners and gmos. Why? Because this stuff acidifies our bodies and weakens our immune systems (80% of our immune system is situated in our gastrointestinal tract), leaving us susceptible to disease.

If you want to do one simple thing to improve your diet and your health, start eating fermented foods, especially, sauerkraut. It will put much needed healthy bacteria in your gut.

5. To get active:

As a whole,  we are far too sedentary and we’re paying a high price for it. Our bodies aren’t fit, leaving us vulnerable to stress and disease. We need to get active. I highly recommend martial arts or yoga, but if you do nothing else, go for a walk every day!

I believe in my heart that having an awareness of these Five Essentials, understanding  them and incorporating them into our daily lives will bring us peace of mind, joyful living and love (sign me up for that). They will bring us happiness (that too)!

I have been following Margaret’s Natural Health for some time, the last post of hers i re-blogged was on amino acids, but this one on amino acids as building blocks for neurotransmitters is particularly interesting, and relevent to me. Margaret has a great deal of knowledge about food and I never tire of reading about her experience in this area. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did!

Margaret's Natural Health Blog

Taurine, tryptophan and tyrosine are three amino acids that begin with the letter ‘T’. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. They are classified as essential if they cannot be made by the body on its own and must be acquired through the diet. They are classified as non-essential if the body can make them. However, we can become deficient in the non-essential amino acids if we do not take in the nutrients necessary to make them.
Taurine is a non-essential amino acid. Zinc and vitamin B6 are some of the building blocks for taurine and both zinc and vitamin B6 are common deficiencies. Taurine is known to help stabilize cell membranes in electrically active tissues such as the brain and heart. It is also a component of the bile produced by the liver and is important in preventing gallstones and for keeping cholesterol soluble.
Stress, alcohol consumption and…

View original post 323 more words

really interesting advanced cognitive neuroscience and application of gaming, mobile technology etc. Really cutting edge brain training!

Psyche's Circuitry

I just attended the second annual Entertainment Software and Cognitive Neurotherapeutics Society (ESCoNS) conference. Say that five times fast.  This conference brought together people in the gaming world with cognitive neuroscientists. I went because I’m developing (and testing) an app that I believe can help people reduce stress, worry, and anxiety in their lives. In addition to more deeply exploring how to make mental health truly fun, I felt that I was seeing the future of mental health unfolding before my eyes.

Here are four ideas I think will change how the field of mental health will look in a decade (or less):

1. Mental health care WILL BE gamified. The mobile revolution and app zeitgeist have changed how we get things done. We want an app for everything because we want our life mobile and streamlined, and the minute we think we want to do something, we want…

View original post 588 more words

Guest Post – Autism And Epilepsy Combined

I would like to thank http://rosewinelover.com/ epilepsy action advocate once again for taking the time to write a guest post.

This month epilepsy me and neurology  has asked me to write a brief (or not-so brief) piece on what it’s like to live with both epilepsy and autism; I shall endeavour to do my best.

life at full volume – meditation and diet fatigue fighting and side effects of anti epileptic drugs – GREAT blog!

Life at Full Volume

As a person living with epilepsy, I not only fight seizures, but I fight fatigue. And I fight fatigue with a mighty vengeance, baby. You’re probably wondering why I’m so fatigued. Well, I’m on a lot of Anti Epileptic Drugs (that’s just a fancy way of saying medication, but I kinda like Anti Epileptic Drugs. It sounds fancy!) and a common side effect of all of them is fatigue. So I can easily have a solid eight hour sleep and still feel tired throughout the day. It’s not the kind of tired where it’s like “Oh, a little coffee could cure this!” It’s the kind of tired where you feel like you could fall into bed and sleep for hours. And hours. And HOURS. But the thing is, sleep does absolutely nothing to fix this side effect. In my opinion, it just makes it worse, because you’re throwing off your…

View original post 713 more words

The Power of Vulnerability – Brene Brown

I watched this talk this evening and have to admit that I laughed, probably a bit too loudly, through this very touching Ted talk re-blogged by Dr Frank Lipman.  I have seen it before from Be Well and Happy.

For all my fellow onions out there, I think this is a really important and not often enough discussed topic which has cropped up a lot recently (see links).

For everyone  this weekend please share Brene’s Talk  on vulnerability as an idea worth spreading.

 

http://bewellandhappy.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/brene-brown-ted-talk-on-vulnerability/

http://www.drfranklipman.com/brene-brown-the-power-of-vulnerability/

http://fredphillips.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/the-beauty-and-benefits-of-vulnerability/

GREAT parkinson’s neuro recovery blog!

Kaitlyn Roland

This week kicked off brain awareness week… and the people over at sharpbrains.com debunked 10 myths around brain fitness… here are my 5 favourites!

Myth 1. Genes deter­mine the fate of our brains.

Fact: Life­long brain plas­tic­ity means that our lifestyles and behav­iors play a sig­nif­i­cant role in how our brains (and there­fore our minds) phys­i­cally evolve.

(we have some aspect of control and can create new neural pathways – say with exercise for brain change!)

Myth 3. Med­ica­tion is the main hope for cog­ni­tive health and enhance­ment.
Fact: Non-invasive inter­ven­tions can have com­pa­ra­ble and more durable ben­e­fits, and are also free of side effects.

(drug side effects are not necessary, but side effects – like endorphins – from exercise are encouraged!)

Myth 4. There’s noth­ing we can do to beat Alzheimer’s dis­ease and cog­ni­tive decline.
Fact: While noth­ing has been shown to pre­vent the pathol­ogy of Alzheimer ’s…

View original post 162 more words

Epilepsy, the National Health Service and the post code lottery – A Tale of Two, or Three or Many Postcodes

I have had some time to think about writing this post. It was sparked by my fellow bloggers post about the loss of her epilepsy nurse (1).

I do not have an epilepsy nurse. I had to put up quite a fight to keep my consultant neurologist.

First I would like to say thank you to my Consultant Neurologist and to my GP Doctors medical practice. I would like to say thank-you, you are all great and you are all doing the best you can in what appears to be increasingly difficult conditions in relation to funding health services in the UK.

But in relation to access to health care for epilepsy, this is my story.

As a child with epilepsy I saw my consultant pediatrician and was assigned to him until my 18^th year when I finally became an adult under UK health provision.

He tended to my health care needs and oversaw my prescription medication. He was a lovely man and I was sad to hear he has now passed away.

I encountered the biggest problems with seizures whilst I was at college in my late teens and early 20’s. I had moved away from my home hospital in Wales and after a couple of years ended up in England.

There did not seem to be any plan for who would oversee my medication and epilepsy care. I think on reflection that this was at a time when there were no National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines for epilepsy care (2)(3) in the UK. Through organisations like Epilepsy Action (4) awareness of the importance of epilepsy care has also grown amongst health care professionals.

My GP (General Practitioner) in England was in charge of my medication and decided to change it. The change was made (as it always is) in my best interests. When I had a significant deterioration in seizure control because of the new medication it took 2 years for me to be assigned to a Consultant Neurologist in a different county in England.

England has different health care arrangements by different County’s much like Wales, but these shift depending on where the specialist services are located.

The consultant who I was assigned to was an expert in his field, but he had a LOT of patients and not a lot of time for me. This experience was not a positive one.

I moved from one county in England to another county, and despite significant problems with seizures there really wasn’t much help from my then neurologist because he just gave me more and more medication which didn’t work.

It is difficult not to want to apportion blame, but I have come to the conclusion that when things go wrong rather than being one person’s fault it is in fact a huge system failure that by and large results in poor health care.

I think that medication is seen as the cheapest option and therefore, for a lot of people the only one.

Finally after some years, my GP decided to take action and referred me to a new Neurologist. This is the one I see to this day. I hold him in high esteem and think he is very thorough. He does listen to me, even though we have differences in opinion.

The problem with this was we had to start from scratch.

He left no stone unturned in the search for my brain squiggles (EEG), and although it took years for him to confirm that I am indeed epileptic, at least I now have closure on this. It made me highly anxious that there may have been some possibility that I could have a brain tumour, scar or be so deeply troubled that I might be able to lose consciousness and go blue and have convulsions all by myself. Then there were the lights, headaches, myoclonic jerks and medication side effects as well as partial seizures.

I could access the epilepsy nurse under my Neurological Consultant in England.

I will never be able to thank my neurologist enough for removing most of my medication.

I can now think.

But it wasn’t over there.

I am now back in Wales and continued to see my neurologist in England without any problems for several years. I did not have an epilepsy nurse, but that didn’t matter so much because I was assigned to a specialist neurologist.

Then the local health board was re-arranged to create a different funding structure a few years ago.

The county where I live does not have a Specialist Consultant Neurologist for Epilepsy or Epilepsy Nurse.

One day I got a letter from the hospital in England saying that my health board were no longer going to pay for my neurological consultations.

This decision had been taken by the local health board without assigning me to a Consultant Epilepsy Neurologist in Wales, or Consulting my General Practitioner or my consultant neurologist in England.

I was absolutely furious. I made a complaint with the help of an NHS Advocate.

I was not able to see my consultant for a year.

It took the health board that long to work out that they would have to pay for me to see a Consultant Neurologist in Wales if they did not continue to fund my trips to England.

As part of my complaint I asked the health board to tell me what they planned to do about access to epilepsy services in Wales.

Then there was a change in Government.

I am now deeply troubled by the current government’s ideas about private health care. (5)(6)

My health has suffered because there was not a joined up service. Under the new proposals, the NHS would be more open to private companies and further fragmentation.

I have seen how private companies and fragmentation has negatively affected the welfare state in Britain.

I find it deeply troubling that more and more people not just with epilepsy but with other health problems will fall through the gaps or face charges for care when there is no money.

If your health is poor you can’t work.

I feel like I have to do all the health care work for myself.

I still don’t have an epilepsy nurse.

In comparison to some countries I obviously feel grateful to have health care at all.

This is not everyone’s experience of epilepsy care in Britain, but it is mine.

1) http://rosewinelover.com/2013/02/25/you-wont-be-seeing-frank-any-more-hes-no-longer-here/

2)http://publications.nice.org.uk/the-epilepsies-the-diagnosis-and-management-of-the-epilepsies-in-adults-and-children-in-primary-and-cg137

3)http://publications.nice.org.uk/the-epilepsies-the-diagnosis-and-management-of-the-epilepsies-in-adults-and-children-in-primary-and-cg137/key-priorities-for-implementation#management

4) Epilepsy Action http://www.epilepsy.org.uk/

5) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21649307

6) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21703667