I want to share with you some shocking news about fibromyalgia.  Are you ready? 

Fibromyalgia is not a muscle problem.  It’s a neurological problem.  I know you’ve been told it’s a muscle problem, but it’s not.  There have been thousands of research papers done in the last ten years that show the following:  The brains of people with fibromyalgia symptoms simply do not work the same way as those who don’t have fibromyalgia symptoms. 

So why isn’t that common knowledge?  Why isn’t it common knowledge that fibromyalgia is a neurological problem?  Well, it’s because of two very important reasons. 

Number one is there’s still a real stigma about people that have chronic unexplained pain.  It’s actually easier to kind of blame it on you, to say, “You know, maybe you’re just depressed and need to take some antidepressants and maybe that’s why you’re hurting.”  It’s ignorance, frankly, because there’s simply a huge body of information that tells us that the brain is responsible for all of the symptoms that you’re feeling. 

The second reason is there’s not a medication for it.  Well, I know you’ve been given medications such as antidepressants and other various concoctions and potions, but the fact is there is no medication that can help address the cause, the neurological cause, of fibromyalgia.  Now, that brings me to my philosophy. 

You know, and I probably should get off my soapbox a little bit but I’m probably gonna get right back on because I think this is really important. 

I want to treat you, not your diagnosis.  I want to treat what we find in you, not the label you’ve been given.  Because let’s face it, many people are misdiagnosed, right, with everything from cancer to strep throat.  And it really doesn’t tell you what to do about it.  Just saying that you have fibromyalgia, sure you know, that gives everybody an idea about what’s going on, but what are we really going to do to help you get better? 

That’s the difference between a traditional diagnosis and a functional diagnosis. I want to look at how your brain is functioning, what’s working and what’s not. So I may diagnose a problem affecting the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, or a problem with the left dentate nucleus of the cerebellum. And if I do diagnose you with a weak cerebellum…Guess what? There are things we can do to strengthen it.

And that’s how you should think about the brain—as a muscle, as a whole bunch of muscles. And some muscles can be weak. The treatment approach is pretty simple: find the weak muscles and strengthen them with a whole host of non-drug methods.

So if someone has these symptoms of fibromyalgia what’s going on is that parts of their brain are not being stimulated correctly—some are getting TOO much stimulation and some are not getting enough. Some muscles are WAY too strong and other muscles TOO weak.

What makes my program unique?

Understand this: Your brain needs two things to be healthy—fuel and activation.

Fuel means primarily oxygen and balanced blood sugar. It’s like gasoline in the tank of your car. Without any gas, you’re not going anywhere. All fibromyalgia sufferers have a fuel problem—every single one I’ve treated. This has to be corrected if your fibromyalgia is ever going to get better.

Activation means your brain needs to be stimulated appropriately to remain healthy.

Our treatment approach, as I’ll show you in a minute, is to uncover what areas of the brain are under-stimulated and then strengthen them.

The newest research shows that the cause of fibromyalgia is an electrical imbalance between the two hemispheres of the brain. This is called a functional disconnenction syndrome. The wiring is there. It’s not cut. It’s just that the juice is not running at 100%.

Even though this is very well documented in scientific research, very few doctors have any idea what it is or how to treat it. Now, as you’ll see in a minute, this electrical imbalance can be caused by toxins, infections, hormone imbalances. You see, we have to do some detective work to find out what’s really going on so you can finally get better and stay that way.

My program works on the fuel AND activation at the same time. That’s why we get the great results.

Every patient with fibromyalgia symptoms I’ve ever helped always asks the same question—what causes fibromyalgia. The answer to that simple question is very complex.

Let’s start with the neurological cause of fibromyalgia.  And it’s pretty much this:  An overactive midbrain.  The midbrain is an incredibly important area to the body, and I realize a lot of this stuff you’ve never heard before but it’s okay.  This is going change the way that you look at the pain that you have and it’s going to give you the solution that you need to end it. 

The midbrain is responsible for all of these symptoms you’ve been having.  So here’s what normally happens in the human body: 

You’ve got your midbrain, you’ve got your lower brainstem and then you’ve got your cortex.

The cortex and the lower brainstem normally dampen the midbrain and here’s why they do it: 

The midbrain needs a lot of supervision! 

The midbrain is where you process light and sound.  It’s where your sympathetic nervous system begins.  And here’s what goes wrong:

When these other areas aren’t dampening the midbrain, it gets hyperactive, it gets too excitable… it gets irritable. 

And that’s why you can get problems with blurry vision; even light and sound can bother you.  This is why you can get headaches.  This area has connections down into your gut, in your intestines and when it’s overworking and over-firing it can given you constipation, give you diarrhea, it can make your adrenal glands work 1,000 times too hard. 

Another neurological cause of fibromyalgia is the imbalance between the right and left sides of the brain. And to really understand how this causes fibromyalgia we need to look at the function of each side. If we understand how they normally function, we can understand what happens when they’re out of balance - when there’s a functional disconnection syndrome.

The right side of the brain is basically the brake pedal; the left side is like a gas pedal. The right side is about stopping things; the left side is about starting.

The right side helps you pay attention, be focused and be able to concentrate…to not be distractible, not be impulsive.

The right side generates what you and I might think of as negative emotions like sadness, grief, fear - it’s basically the “sad” half of the brain.

The right side helps you read between the lines, to infer what’s not there in black and white. It has all your social skills and NON verbal communication skills. It is stimulated by new and novel things.

Now contrast that with the left brain, which is about starting things. It controls fine motor, not gross motor but fine motor. It’s very linear, it’s good at rote memorization.

The left side has all your verbal communication skills—being able to talk smoothly and find all your words. The left side likes routine and sameness. The left side generates “positive” emotions - motivation, happiness, intention. It’s the “happy” side of the brain.

So I think you can already see what happens if the left side of the brain gets weak. You’ll have trouble with language skills, finding your words and you’ll be depressed, while at the same time the right side becomes more dominant. This causes you to have more right brain emotions like fear and sadness. It’s a vicious cycle.

Bottom line is one side can become very weak and neglected, while the other becomes dominant like a bully. This worsens over time and the brain becomes out-of-sync with itself.

And remember, the midbrain needs supervision and input from the right and left hemispheres—if one of these gets weak then the midbrain can start to fire excessively causing all those physical problems we just mentioned.

Now that you understand the most common neurological causes of fibromyalgia, let’s talk a little about some of the metabolic or biochemical causes…we could talk about this for hours, but let’s just hit a few highlights

Many fibromyalgia sufferers will tell you that they started feeling horrible after a major sickness, or an infection. This is because inflammation from the sickness has ompromised the FUEL delivery to their brain and the brain is slowly starving and becoming weak .

Some fibro sufferers have menstrual problems, polycystic ovaries, early menopause or thyroid issues that happened ALONG with the fibromyalgia symptoms - there is a huge connection between hormone imbalances and the bad brain function that causes fibromyalgia.

Metabolic means having a problem with blood sugar, insulin and glucose. Glucose comes from the foods you eat. Your brain must have enough glucose - but does not like blood sugar swings. Over-eating of sugar and high carbohydrate foods is epidemic. This leads to massive blood sugar swings with hypoglycemia (excessively low) as one extreme and diabetes as the other.  This causes major fuel problems for your brain as well as inflammation. You’ll also start to make too much cortisol.  Cortisol goes to your brain and it affects areas that are responsible for learning so you get fibro-fog.  And I know all of you have experienced the symptoms we’re talking about.  But I’ll tell you this: no one has ever explained this like we just did, have they?

The last big group here is toxic exposure - you’re exposed to chemicals every day. Many fibromyalgia victims can’t get rid of these chemicals and toxic metals. The toxins build up and start to affect liver function, thyroid function, adrenal gland function - it’s like throwing a monkey wrench in the machine. The toxins have to be removed and the organ systems carefully rebuilt.

Traditional treatment for fibromyalgia is pretty poor. There are medications like Lyrica, Neurontin, Antidepressants. And for some people they help a little bit, but almost never do the medications turn someone’s life around. Usually, the medication either doesn’t work at all, or stops working or causes nasty side effects that just aren’t worth it.

Of course there’s also physical therapy which usually makes the person worse, because IT’S NOT A MUSCLE PROBLEM. Counseling therapy though can really help because fibromyalgia has a strong emotional component - it puts a real strain on families. And just a side note - counseling therapy is a big activation to the frontal lobes.

Biofeedback and acupuncture, while helpful, are usually kind of like aspirins - they help for a while but the symptoms come back again.

So all of these are useful and helpful to some degree. However…..none of these look at the issue of hemispheric imbalance. Which side needs the help? Right or left?

Which specific part of that side? Parietal lobe, frontal lobe or cerebellum? And none of them take into account “metabolic capacity;” all fibromyalgia sufferers have experienced this…you do too much and you CRASH! How much activation and stimulation can your brain handle? How is much enough? How much is too much?

With most traditional treatments for fibromyalgia…performance is improved, but the imbalance is not corrected!

The question is…are they better? Yes, they are better, their brain function is better.  But what’s the problem? The discrepancy between the two sides is what’s left…and that’s what we have to treat.

That’s the focus of our Brain-Based Therapy (BBT) program. BBT is a unique way of turning on the brain of the fibromyalgia sufferer and making sure that the right and left sides are integrated, working together and balanced.

How do we do that? We use everything we can to activate the parts of the brain that need it. We use specific forms of sensory stimulation like different kinds of light, sound, vibration and certain smells.  We use specific eye movements, cognitive visualizations and imagery exercises. We work on the cerebellum with special core exercises, non linear complex movements and caloric stimulations.

Let’s go through a few of these…

UNILATERAL ADJUSTMENTS:

You’ve heard that the right brain controls that left side of the body and the left brain controls the right side. When there is a decrease of firing or impulses in one side of the brain, I only want to stimulate the joints on the opposite side. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Don't worry...I WILL ONLY USE VERY LIGHT INSTRUMENT ACTIVATION SO YOU WILL NOT GET WORSE!  Have you ever had a massage, a chiropractic adjustment, or physical therapy and felt worse afterward? It is because the treatment was TOO MUCH for your nervous system.  It over-stimulated you and you crashed...we say that it Exceeded Metabolic Capacity (EMC).

AUDITORY STIMULATION:

Listening to sound in one ear will stimulate the opposite side of the brain and increase impulses. Different types of sounds (frequencies, tones and pitches) affect the right and left sides of the brain differently.  We use specially composed music that specifically activates one side of the brain. We use right brain music if your right side is weak or left brain music if your left side is weak.

OLFACTORY STIMULATION:

Your sense of smell is special. Your sight, sound, taste, and touch all travel through a sensory area of your brain called the thalamus. However, SMELL GOES DIRECTLY TO THE BRAIN - there's no middleman. Smells are powerful brain stimulations. I'm sure you've experienced this....the smell of homemade cookies baking in the oven brings fond memories of your childhood flooding back...makes your mouth water. Or on the other hand, just a whiff of spoiled milk makes your stomach turn. Smells you like stimulate the left side of the brain. Smells you don't like stimulate the right side of the brain.

CALORICS:

A small amount of warm water in the ear will stimulate the semi-circular canals in your inner ear. They send massive signals through the vestibular nerve in a chain reaction to several important brain areas: the cerebellum, the cortex and then down to the lower brainstem (pontomedullary region). Remember, it's your lower brainstem and cortex that slow down the over-firing upper brainstem (mesencephalon). Caloric stimulation is also fantastic for treating dizziness.

And we can’t forget about OXYGEN:

After about age 20, YOU LOSE 1% EACH YEAR OF YOUR ABILITY TO USE OXYGEN! So, for example, at age 47 you've lost 27% of your capacity. Oxygen is like gasoline in the gas tank of your car. As you get older, having enough oxygen becomes crucial. If you don't have any gas in the car, you are not going anywhere. One focus of our recovery program is to increase your oxygen so your brain can do its job.  Without oxygen available for your brain and nervous system, it is most likely that no treatment will work!

Are there any drugs involved? No. Since there are no drugs, there are no side effects to worry about.

What’s the secret to your program? There’s not really a secret, it’s just that we look at everything. We don’t focuson one symptom and put blinders on. We look at your entire body. We look at your neurology, chemistry and nutrition and look at in terms of hemispheres, right and left hemispheres - that’s what allows us to cut to the chase and get some fantastic results.

So where do we begin? How do I find out what’s causing your fibromyalgia? We do what’s called a Brain Function Assessment…

It’s not invasive, we don’t have do CT scans and MRIs to be able to look into your brain and nervous system and find out what’s wrong. We look at things from a functional perspective, using neurological assessments.

After we’ve done all that, what the assessment tells us is where the weak part of the brain is. And then I design a program of BBT to address it.

I don’t want you to hurt another day.  There’s really no reason for you to still be sitting there playing Russian roulette with a bunch of medications. 

The bottom line is this:  you need to find someone that understands that fibromyalgia is a neurological problem and not a psychiatric problem.  I mean, yes, the problem is in your head, okay, but it’s not the way that somebody’s told you before… it’s a real thing.  What you’re feeling is real and there’s a reason for it!  You’ve got to find someone that understands that so you can get the appropriate treatment.  Either find someone that you can sit down with who will listen to every single word that you say (because I know you’ve been there.  You’ve been to the doctors that won’t even look at you.  They won’t even look you in the eye.  They let you talk for two to three minutes, they write the script and then they leave).  You need to find someone that won’t do that because someone that’s trained in this information knows how important, how crucially important every single word you say is to understanding where the cause of your problem is.  I want to treat the cause of the problem, not just the symptoms.  So, what you need to do is find someone that can listen to you, understands that it’s a neurological problem and can help you end your pain today.