"What we wish doctors knew ..."
In the course of Alaina’s illness, we are fortunate in that all practitioners we encountered were both caring and concerned. However – especially in the case of the pelvic pain – they simply were not always correct. Now that I have some distance from the worst of Alaina’s illness, I would like to share some thoughts with health care providers. These come from our own experiences, but also include viewpoints from other chronically ill patients whom we encountered along our journey.
* NOTE: Each neural retraining program uses a slightly different term to describe essentially the same condition: the Gupta Program refers to “Neuro-Immune Conditioned Syndrome” (NICS); DNRS refers to “limbic system impairment” or “limbic system dysfunction” or “limbic system trauma loop”; the Lightening Process refers to “physical emergency response” (PER); the Curable app and followers of Dr. John Sarno refer to “psychophysiologic disorders” (PPD); and various functional MDs have their own methods of describing the same chronic brain response. My hope is that in the near future, the medical community will designate a single official diagnostic code for the condition.
For this website, I adopted the GUPTA PROGRAM description of NICS (Neuro-Immune Conditioned Syndrome), as I believe this description most closely captures the essence of the condition.
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A Neuro-Immune Conditioned Syndrome [NICS] may be the actual root cause of continued illness in patients who:
- … have any number of “syndromes,” “-dynia’s,” and/or autoimmune conditions
- … are not responding well to the normal courses of treatment for their diagnosed or suspected condition(s)
- … develop new symptoms/conditions upon seeing other symptoms/conditions fall away
- … are experiencing reactions to their environments [mold, chemicals, EMFs, etc.]
- … are highly sensitive to most if not all treatments [MCAS, allergic reactions, migraines, seizures, etc.]
- … defy diagnosis altogether.
- NOTE: Both Gupta and DNRS are seeing some success in treating LONG COVID. Click here for Gupta Long Covid Info and DNRS Long Covid Info. It is possible that once the Covid infection has passed, the brain is left in a state of NICS.
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I strongly encourage you to check out OvidDX – an excellent program recently launched by a team of physicians and specialists behind the Curable app, geared toward training medical and other practitioners to recognize and treat NICS.* While it focuses primarily on chronic pain, the training and treatment have far reaching implications for a host of chronic illnesses and conditions.
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Testing is currently under way for the Gupta Program and DNRS, among others. However, this type of independent testing can take years, and medical testing governing bodies often resist sanctioning non-pharmacological approaches. I encourage you not to wait before exploring neuroplasticity-based approaches in order to decide for yourself the potential effectiveness.
IF you believe NICS may make sense for some of your patients ...
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BEFORE discussing the possibility of an NICS diagnosis with your patients, PLEASE … Take the time to purchase and WATCH or LISTEN TO a FULL neural retraining program. Most programs now have a free initial trial, and some have special offers for practitioners. Curable, Gupta Program, DNRS, and re-origin all have successful track records treating a variety of conditions. Curable is an easy-to-use app for iOs devices. Gupta, DNRS & re-origin are quite similar to one another and can be done completely online; the Lightening Process is begun with an online course and is followed up with one-on-one coaching. But UNDERSTANDING THE PROGRAM IS IMPERATIVE. It is not enough to know that neuroplasticity-based treatments work … you should understand HOW neuroplasticity works in these specific programs. Otherwise, your language may actually negate a patient’s progress.
- The material may seem redundant or elementary to you. However, the collaboration between you and your patients will be most effective if you view the program through their eyes, AND if you are intimately familiar with the language and the treatments. (Note: The repetition in each program is intentional. Please be as patient with the program as you expect your patients to be.)
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If a patient agrees to explore a neural retraining program, please consider recommending that he watch the full program before you reconvene to discuss how you will work together to support his healing journey going forward.
- NOTE: Before recommending further treatments, please consider how those treatments fit into the foundational premise of the neural retraining program you are using, then be certain that your patient understands your views on this. It is possible that going forward, you may decide to recommend fewer tests and prescribe fewer medications and supplements.
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Please avoid referring to a patient as being “sensitive.” While it may be true that NICS is a form of neural hypersensitivity, this is not the same as emotional sensitivity.
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“Psychological” versus “Brain-Mind-Body” … Your use of terms matters:
- If you inquire about a possible history of stress, anxiety, depression, emotional trauma or physical trauma (like a car accident) … please be sure to explain that you are NOT asking because you think he/she has a psychological condition, but because the brain-mind-body connection is profound, and that it is helpful to have the full picture.
- While placing neuroplasticity, limbic system impairment, and neural retraining into the category of “psychology” may be correct on some level, this may only serve to alienate and anger a patient who is suffering with very real physical conditions. It makes them feel that you are yet another doctor saying “it’s all in your head” or “it’s just stress or emotions.”
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IMPORTANT! If you recommend neural retraining, please consider NOT recommending long-term avoidance behaviors, such as avoiding water damaged buildings and mold … avoiding chemical smells … avoiding EMFs … avoiding foods … etc. Instead, please consider explaining that, “Yes, while you are working to rewire the brain, you may need to temporarily avoid or limit these exposures until your brain no longer reads them as dangerous. But once you rewire, this should no longer be an issue for you. Notice your family and friends who are able to navigate the same environments without adverse effects. You are not genetically doomed, and even though your brain and body may currently be reading these things as danger, which in turn is affecting many systems in your body, this will not always be the case. And while you might benefit from short-term prescription or supplement support, this may not always be necessary.”
- When a doctor recommends an avoidance behavior, it can reinforce the subconscious “danger” message to the limbic system.
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Regarding food issues/IBS/leaky gut: You are undoubtedly aware that good nutrition plays an important role in optimal health (although historically there has been a glaring lack of curriculum on this topic in medical schools), and that certain foods are less ideal than others AND some foods are actually healing (see Is It Your Brain … or Your Food?). Some patients may even benefit from elimination protocols. HOWEVER …
- Please be aware that patients with limbic system hyper arousal often have IBS/food sensitivities as a result of this impairment (the “fight or flight” stress response leads to digestion issues, which can then lead to subconscious fear around food resulting in everything from mild IBS to full blown allergic/histamine reactions – this was the case for my daughter, and her tendency to have black-or-white thinking about “healthy & unhealthy” food continues to be a challenge for her).
- Your language about food matters. If you discuss nutrition, you may wish to avoid demonizing any particular food, even sugar, in order to minimize the subconscious “danger” response. In the absence of true anaphylaxis, reinforce the notion that once the patient rewires the brain, he should be able once again to eat a variety of foods. At that point, he may choose to avoid certain foods in order to gain optimal health.
- According to both Gupta and DNRS materials, food issues are often the last to fall away … but with dedication, and sometimes additional coaching … they nearly always do.
- Again, there are many, many online testimonials of recovery from food/IBS issues through neural retraining alone.
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Regarding CIRS/mold illness: Regardless of what certain mold studies have indicated, please consider that the root cause may be NICS, and NOT the mycotoxins nor the “dreaded mold gene.”
- By saying this, I am not suggesting that CIRS is “imagined”; I believe many, many people may have become unable to clear mycotoxins, and then develop debilitating conditions as a result. My daughter is one of them.
- However, it is possible that the inability to clear mold mycotoxins is a SYMPTOM of a maladapted limbic system, and is not the root cause. While further research is needed, widespread anecdotal evidence is compelling enough that it should be considered. Why not try the least invasive treatment first?
- Once the limbic trauma loop is corrected, the body can return to homeostasis, doing what it’s meant to do – clear toxins, methylate, and digest properly, etc. This may take time, but it is worth addressing the root cause … and worth NOT having a patient live in fear the rest of his life, nor live a life dependent on medications and supplements.
- Note: When you listen to Annie Hopper’s personal story, she recounts that her symptoms began in earnest when she was exposed to mold and chemicals in her office building. However, when you listen closely to the entire story, she had been in a car accident the year before and had already been battling things like chronic neck pain. It is quite possible that the car accident was the trigger for NICS, and the reactions to the chemical and mold exposures were symptoms of existing limbic system impairment.
- I believe this is not dissimilar to MCS patients who can detect miniscule amounts of chemicals from long distances, often with devastating physiological responses. As I understand it, this is due to overdevelopment of the part of the brain responsible for smell. BUT with dedicated retraining, these people can once again be exposed to all sorts of smells/chemicals with no adverse reaction. Once the brain is retrained, they avoid chemicals because they choose to because it makes good sense, and not because the chemicals pose an immediate danger.
- Again, please understand that when you suggest that a patient avoid moldy environments and/or foods, you may be reinforcing the fear message to the subconscious brain. Perhaps suggest temporarily avoiding or limiting exposure during the retraining process, but not because it is dangerous, but because the brain is not yet reading these signals properly.
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Regarding Pelvic Pain/Vulvodynia: I believe that my daughter’s downward spiral actually began with Primary Provoked Vestibulodynia that went misdiagnosed for nearly two years, exacerbated by ensuing treatment missteps along the way. While neural retraining is not a panacea cure for all conditions, I DO believe it is worth considering in vulvodynia treatment, and I would be happy to share our specific experiences if you wish to contact me directly.
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Finally … while neural retraining promises to be an effective form of treatment for many conditions, you should also understand that it generally is NOT an easy approach. It takes commitment and dedication on the part of the patient, and it takes time. It also works best if the patient has support at home from family and/or friends. Also, all retraining programs generally prescribe a minimum 6-month commitment of daily work, and it can often take longer for full recovery – BUT many patients experience compelling incremental progress right away.
However, there is a subset of patients for whom a neural retraining program is not enough. Through our journey we came to understand the importance of clearing trauma, whether it’s trauma with a small ‘t’ or a large ‘T.’ Make no mistake, all sorts of unresolved traumas can lead to illness and chronic conditions. The experience of an extended illness in and of itself can be very traumatic. If a patient is unable to engage in a retraining program, or he hits a significant setback that he cannot overcome, it may be helpful to connect him with additional resources for trauma-informed therapy such as EMDR, AIT, IFS, or EFT. Everyone’s healing journey is different, but an IFS approach, along with skilled EMDR therapy, was the combination that finally enabled Alaina to take her healing to a breakthrough level.
For those who are able to sustain the effort, the payoff can be “miraculous” REGAINED HEALTH and QUALITY OF LIFE.
YOU are the Placebo / Nocebo.
As the healer, your beliefs and the way you express them, can be a powerful placebo … and conversely, they can be the nocebo. I cannot underscore this enough. Your patients’ subconscious brains are picking up on every subtle message you send. Your words, your enthusiasm, your genuine hope for and belief in self healing … all matter. And conversely, your doubt or your criticisms of programs … regardless of how small … can sow subconscious seeds of doubt.
The only way to decide if you can endorse a neuroplasticity-based program is to fully understand it, then decide for yourself its potential effectiveness. But if you decide to recommend it, get behind it with 100% enthusiasm and support, and understand the importance of your role in the neural rewiring process.
Check out this TEDx Talk: “Is There Scientific Proof We Can Heal Ourselves?” by Lissa Rankin, MD. Even better: Read the book … and consider revising your own intake questionnaire. Naturopaths and functional MDs especially prize themselves for thinking outside the box … but if you are not asking some form of these questions of your patients, you may be missing the box altogether.
Finally, see “What Doctors Have To Say” about the Gupta Program, DNRS and the Curable app.