Epilepsy Case
I haven't updated for a while. Lately many people have been coming to see me for chronic musculoskeletal pain. With acupuncture I'm able to give them pretty good results in very short periods of time. But what has interested me lately is a patient I'm currently treating for chronic epilepsy.
Patient is a male in his early 50s who has chronic epilepsy. The epilepsy attacks cause his whole body to lock up in a tight tension and frequently results in him biting the inner sides of his mouth. As a result, it frequently influences his work. It is amazing he still has his work, I thought to myself. In other parts of the world employers won't necessarily be so inclusive. The day of his first visit, he had just gotten out of the hospital a few days prior after an attack at work. The friend who referred him to me was also my patient. He told me over the phone he actually had 3 attacks that day. When I hear things like this I'm thinking what it is I can do to help.
The patient told me he's seen the neurologist whose drugs don't work. He has had whole body scans and nothing wrong has been found. Instead he finds a link in his attacks with the saltiness of his meals as well as the quality of his drinking water. Personally speaking I used to think the drinking water in BC is pretty good already. But I've done water pH testing on our tap water and it's about only a 7, which is neither good nor bad, since it half way on the scale. I personally use a filtering device and it gets the water to pH 8.5-9, which I'd rather consume, so I can see why my patient would feel better by drinking higher quality water. Despite this, the attacks still come time to time. When he's not careful with his life-style or if work gets too hectic, attacks come more frequently.
In Chinese Medicine we approach epilepsy by subduing the energy that frequently shoots up into the head. For normal people the energy is supposed to be on the bottom of the body, but when people get old, the reverse happens. On the streets when we see people, men and women alike, whose faces are constantly red, that's one of the more common examples of this pathological state in North American populations.
So far I've been treating him for 1 month. With weekly acupuncture treatments this patient has had only one attack in the last 30 days. I'm looking forward to another month of treatment and see where I can get him to. For now, he's doing quite good. Herbal medicine is definitely something that can be added but at this point in time acupuncture is doing quite well.
A note to epilepsy patients: Chinese Medicine of course thinks this has a huge link to diet. So always stay away from foods that are too sweet and spicy. Definitely no milk, no dairy, no cheese, and cut down on meat and fish. A vegetarian diet is definitely worth trying, even for just a few days a week for beginners.
For more info on diets and Chinese Medicine, my eBook gives further detail.