Could this be IT ? - brain inflammation

[Hip]

@Wayne - thanks for those links, but I can't see anything there that indicates DMSO can reduce brain inflammation.

 

[Wayne]

@Wayne - thanks for those links, but I can't see anything there that indicates DMSO can reduce brain inflammation.

@Hip -- Brain swelling is mentioned in this study: -- Dimethyl Sulfoxide Lowers ICP After Closed Head Trauma

Check out the section "Treating Head Trauma" in this article: -- The Untapped Healing Potential of DMSO
-
This might interest you:

Dimethyl Sulfoxide - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics

 

[Hip]

@Hip -- Brain swelling is mentioned in this study: -- Dimethyl Sulfoxide Lowers ICP After Closed Head Trauma

It says DMSO can reduce intracranial pressure, but not actual inflammation.

DMSO is one of those things the alternative health world hypes up as providing miraculous benefits; but generally it is no better than say aspirin or ibuprofen. And you never see the alternative health world wax lyrical about ibuprofen.

The most interesting use I ever heard was in the 1960s, when hippies would dissolve LSD in DMSO, then put it into water pistols to fire at policemen. Since substances dissolved DMSO are transdermally absorbed across the skin, you can imagine the result.

 

[MonkeyMan]

Here are some interesting studies on reducing brain inflammation.

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ars.2017.7003

https://jneuroinflammation.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1742-2094-7-30

 

[Hopeful2021]

Thanks for posting this article. His premise sure sounds and ‘feels right‘ to me. I’m ~30 years PWC and last year sprouted peripheral neuropathy, which is very painful in my feet. Further, I fell bad last Sept, 2019, and had a concussion. I’m now suffering post concussion syndrome. It’s symptoms are like a CFS crash with nausea and more brain fog. I think all this is interrelated; all symptoms are now compounded, ugh=&.

I sent the article to my neurologist: “If you buy into this, as I do, can you think of any medications that might treat my brain?” If he answers I’ll post his reply. (He’s a young type A, in high demand, who also believes MECFS is caused in the brain.) Fortunately, he’s been supportive with lots of blood work and image testing - unusual!

Hello Stretched.
Post concussion syndrome.
just FYI - in case you haven't already come across this info.
In book the Brain's Way of Healing, a neuroplasticity device called the PONs is great for treating post concussion syndrome. I used its cousin for a severe ME episode and all sorts of problems called the BrainPort. It was helpful. I found other neuroplasticity devices to be kinder to my brain though and highly recommend that book just for inspiration on what's out there.

 

[Hopeful2021]

I can only look at it empirically, as there are dozens of potential explanations in theory for feeling the way I've felt for now 13 years and the way thousands of people feel. The chronic infection was a major and very convincing route to try out, took a ton of antibiotics for a while, never changed a thing. The adrenal fatigue was another, gave that a shot with treatments, nothing. Earlier there was the whole detox thing: 'my body is full of accumulated heavy metals', do a hair tissue mineral analysis and then treat with coffee enemas and regular physical exercise and supps. Nothing.

Beyond the GI symptoms with food intolerances, it seems the other area of the body that's really concerned would be...the brain. I mean "brainfog", cognitive impairment, memory or sleep problems. As said in the article the brain (hypothalamus etc) is responsible for lots of that. I do feel like... I guess my brain is ... loosely connected in the cranium, like it just won't function properly. The brain has to be one of the major concerned organs in this whole bizarre experience.

Is intranasal therapy common in the US or other places ? It seems extremely rare in France, if not nonexistent.

Hello joe.
I really like nasal spray NAD. Indeed it works better than sublingual forms. For the brain, I've done months of IV therapy. It was consecutive days of IV NAD that gave me the largest increase I've had in my many years of trying to get rid of this disease.
then when we added IV glutathione at the end, even better results.
I also enjoy getting Hyperbariac Oxygen but only do so when I'm in ketosis. The two together are researched and provide many benefits.

 

[Stretched]

Hello Stretched.
Post concussion syndrome.
just FYI - in case you haven't already come across this info.
In book the Brain's Way of Healing, a neuroplasticity device called the PONs is great for treating post concussion syndrome. I used its cousin for a severe ME episode and all sorts of problems called the BrainPort. It was helpful. I found other neuroplasticity devices to be kinder to my brain though and highly recommend that book just for inspiration on what's out there.

I’ll find it and take a look. Thanks.

 

[Stretched]

@Jo86 Please excuse the reference to a bit older research, 2007, and it’s quantitative, but you can skip the calculus and get the point. It highly supports my belief and shows how stress can cause MECFS, perhaps initiated or certainly correlated with brain inflammation:

Inclusion of the glucocorticoid receptor in a hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis model reveals bistability
Shakti Gupta, Eric Aslakson*, Brian M Gurbaxani and Suzanne D Vernon
Address: Division of Viral and Rickettsial Diseases, National Center for Zoonotic, Vector-Borne, and Enteric Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 600 Clifton Rd, MS-A15, Atlanta, Georgia 30333, USA
Email: Shakti Gupta - shaktig@gmail.com; Eric Aslakson* - btl0@cdc.gov; Brian M Gurbaxani - buw8@cdc.gov; Suzanne D Vernon - svernon@cdc.gov
* Corresponding author
Published: 14 February 2007 Received: 27 August 2006
Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling 2007, 4:8 doi:10.1186/1742-4682-4-8 This article is available from: http://www.tbiomed.com/content/4/1/8
Accepted: 14 February 2007
© 2007 Gupta et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Background: The body's primary stress management system is the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis. The HPA axis responds to physical and mental challenge to maintain homeostasis in part by controlling the body's cortisol level. Dysregulation of the HPA axis is implicated in numerous stress-related diseases.
Results: We developed a structured model of the HPA axis that includes the glucocorticoid receptor (GR). This model incorporates nonlinear kinetics of pituitary GR synthesis. The nonlinear effect arises from the fact that GR homodimerizes after cortisol activation and induces its own synthesis in the pituitary. This homodimerization makes possible two stable steady states (low and high) and one unstable state of cortisol production resulting in bistability of the HPA axis. In this model, low GR concentration represents the normal steady state, and high GR concentration represents a dysregulated steady state. A short stress in the normal steady state produces a small perturbation in the GR concentration that quickly returns to normal levels. Long, repeated stress produces persistent and high GR concentration that does not return to baseline forcing the HPA axis to an alternate steady state. One consequence of increased steady state GR is reduced steady state cortisol, which has been observed in some stress related disorders such as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).
Conclusion: Inclusion of pituitary GR expression resulted in a biologically plausible model of HPA axis bistability and hypocortisolism. High GR concentration enhanced cortisol negative feedback on the hypothalamus and forced the HPA axis into an alternative, low cortisol state. This model can be used to explore mechanisms underlying disorders of the HPA axis.

 

[Stretched]

I’ll find it and take a look. Thanks.

Here’s a synopsis: Kirkus Reviews

@Jo86 The author's first book chronicled revolutionary new insights into how the brain can be helped to restructure itself in response to injury. Here, Doidge interviews a second generation of “scientists, doctors and patients,” whom he calls “neuroplasticians.” He recounts his discussion with an American physician specializing in the treatment of chronic pain who pioneered a new method using mental imagery, after he suffered a serious injury. Doidge visited with a controversial 77-year-old sufferer of Parkinson's disease who claims to have been able to reverse his symptoms (and slow the underlying process of deterioration) by focused exercise. One of the most fascinating characters is an Israeli medical practitioner who developed a unique healing method for patients suffering muscular injuries, based on insights from the practice of jujitsu. Doidge uses these and other clinical accounts to illustrate what he claims are three fundamental processes that can be tapped to unleash the brain's healing capacity: the necessity of countering the brain's adaptation to a lost function by “learned nonuse”; the importance of isolating damaged neurons from healthy ones; and the significance of recognizing that “the organic living brain is quite the opposite of an engineered machine with hardwired circuits that can perform only a limited number of actions that it has been designed to do.” Doidge’s takeaway message is that mental activity correlates with neuronal activity, but we still do not know where thought takes place. “This mystery of the mind remains unsolved,” he writes.
A lively, anecdotal account of potential new directions that may point the way to major therapeutic breakthroughs.

 

[Hopeful2021]

I’ll find it and take a look. Thanks.

@Stretched
Hello .... are you by chance also hyper mobile? I'm just wondering since you have the username stretched?
what I learned since the book is that flexibility or tightness are meshed with "safety" and the brain knowing it's safe to move in certain ways.
I've done many IV nutrients in order to bring healing to my brain. And in doing so, coupled what I learned in that book with what I learn from a myriad of schools of neuroplasticity training, also called neurostim by some of the schools. I myself prefer the term neuroplasticity ReTraining. Oh those stubborn memories and signals.
In any event, the BrainPort is not specifically mentioned in the book, mainly the PONS. But the BrainPort is available for purchase in Canada unlike the PONs which is more expensive and required to be return to the neuro clinic once a person's program with them is finished.
Have you also done keto and Hyperbariac oxygen? There's a great neuroscientist whose early work has already inspired two human studies. It is surprising how helpful the two are together for many things.

 

[Stretched]

@Stretched
Hello .... are you by chance also hyper mobile? I'm just wondering since you have the username stretched?
what I learned since the book is that flexibility or tightness are meshed with "safety" and the brain knowing it's safe to move in certain ways.

Have you also done keto and Hyperbariac oxygen? There's a great neuroscientist whose early work has already inspired two human studies. It is surprising how helpful the two are together for many things.

I’m probably the antithesis of ‘hyper mobile’,) I chose ‘Stretched’ years ago as a result of being so stressed, strung out. I feel that I literally worked myself sick, into CFS, and it progressed over time=(. I’m retired now and
at about 7-8/10 affected, 10 being down and out.

No, on hyperbaric medicine. FWIW, and not much, I did go to 300’ in a chamber way back during scuba diving days. I sounded like Donald Duck as we experimented with nitrogen narcosis.

I got interested in brain dynamics and took a couple of online courses. In trying to figure this DD I switched from viral causation, in all the research to brain dysfunction and the HPA research. It fits for me and makes total sense.
The main hang up after identifying the mechanisms is getting some doctor to treat it, albeit experimentally. It‘s slow going, hampered by regional medical foci which can be far removed from the power centers, e.g. University research centers, namely at Harvard on the east coast (see Kamaroff, et al publication). So it’s expensive and painful to pursue.

Are you of these leanings? If you have interests or insights along these lines I’d love to hear them.

 

[Stretched]

@Stretched...
I've done many IV nutrients in order to bring healing to my brain. And in doing so, coupled what I learned in that book with what I learn from a myriad of schools of neuroplasticity training, also called neurostim by some of the schools. I myself prefer the term neuroplasticity ReTraining. Oh those stubborn memories and signals.
In any event, the BrainPort is not specifically mentioned in the book, mainly the PONS. But the BrainPort is available for purchase in Canada unlike the PONs which is more expensive and required to be return to the neuro clinic once a person's program with them is finished.
Have you also done keto and Hyperbariac oxygen? There's a great neuroscientist whose early work has already inspired two human studies. It is surprising how helpful the two are together for many things.

Back to your content... . I’ve done some reading in neuroplasticity but haven’t really caught on as to how it works.
It seemed to be centered around eye movement and thought? That made it feel abstract, like meditation. You never really knew if you were making progress and if so, how?

Neutrients make sense if you can infer the biochemistry mechanisms. Are there specifics you recommend?
Re the Pons discussion, I’d have to read and try to get knowledgeable before commenting. Keto, same.

 

[Jo86]

Hello joe.
I really like nasal spray NAD. Indeed it works better than sublingual forms. For the brain, I've done months of IV therapy. It was consecutive days of IV NAD that gave me the largest increase I've had in my many years of trying to get rid of this disease.
then when we added IV glutathione at the end, even better results.
I also enjoy getting Hyperbariac Oxygen but only do so when I'm in ketosis. The two together are researched and provide many benefits.

Hi. Yeah I wanted to try the hyperbaric chamber thing but the doctor was super dismissive, in France docs are super conservative. The nasal stuff sounds pretty promising then, glad you're doing better.

@Stretched thx for those. What I could understand was interesting, the rest too technical.

 

[Hopeful2021]

Hi. Yeah I wanted to try the hyperbaric chamber thing but the doctor was super dismissive, in France docs are super conservative. The nasal stuff sounds pretty promising then, glad you're doing better.

@Stretched thx for those. What I could understand was interesting, the rest too technical.

@Jo86 i sure hope nasal spray helps you. Do you have trouble digesting certain foods? Have you also tried simple things like B vitamin or glutathione shots? Not as easy to do, but they've been around for decades.

 

[andyguitar]

.” Doidge’s takeaway message is that mental activity correlates with neuronal activity, but we still do not know where thought takes place.

I've read Doidge's book. Fascinating.

I’ve done some reading in neuroplasticity but haven’t really caught on as to how it works.
It seemed to be centered around eye movement and thought?

It's also about how new neural networks can be grown by physical activity. So for instance, if a stroke patient who has lost movement in a limb has it moved manually by someone else a new neural network can be formed in the brain.

 

[Hopeful2021]

I've read Doidge's book. Fascinating.

It's also about how new neural networks can be grown by physical activity. So for instance, if a stroke patient who has lost movement in a limb has it moved manually by someone else a new neural network can be formed in the brain.

@andyguitar @Stretched
Neuroplasticity training is almost everything that you know when you are awake and likely things when you are asleep/in a coma too.
Why I am a fan of it is because I had tremendous amounts of pain and many patterns of malfunctioning muscle and fascia patterns that were keeping me from having good function in the basics of eating, drinking, breathing, sleeping, walking, talking.
Ending the excruciating pain I was in wasn't even on my radar. I had decided years ago to just get comfortable with having a football team's tolerance for pain. That was a miraculous side benefit of using different therapies to help those basic patterns out. It I would not have understood the why without that book and being able to explore more the experiences of others who either provide therapy or who are in pursuit of it.
A lot of ppl with severe ME are bedridden, unable to chew, digest, and are in considerable pain. Some of that **may** with lots of time and luck be able to be modestly overcome with neuroplasticity training... the form it might take will likely be different for all.

 

[andyguitar]

A lot of ppl with severe ME are bedridden, unable to chew, digest, and are in considerable pain. Some of that **may** with lots of time and luck be able to be modestly overcome with neuroplasticity training... the form it might take will likely be different for all.

Yes i'd agree that it could be of some help. But I'm not thinking it could help for brain inflammation which I suspect has it's origin outside of the brain. Put simply the body effecting the brain. But there are cases in which the persons symptoms began with a head injury. So if that caused brain damage neuroplastic training could be a way back to better health.

 

[Stretched]

@andyguitar @Stretched
Neuroplasticity training is almost everything that you know when you are awake and likely things when you are asleep/in a coma too... .
Why I am a fan of it is because I had tremendous amounts of pain and many patterns of malfunctioning muscle and fascia patterns that were keeping me from having good function in the basics of eating, drinking, breathing, sleeping, walking, talking. .

I can appreciate your allusion to growing neural circuits but I fail to see how this can be ‘practiced’ as a concept? It seems like just living would do it, maybe conscious of the intent, again like meditation? No need to write a tome but maybe you could post an illustrative example of how one approaches a cure of something neuronal?

 

[Hopeful2021]

Yes i'd agree that it could be of some help. But I'm not thinking it could help for brain inflammation which I suspect has it's origin outside of the brain. Put simply the body effecting the brain. But there are cases in which the persons symptoms began with a head injury. So if that caused brain damage neuroplastic training could be a way back to better health.

@andyguitar
Hello AndyGuitar....
I'm not tied to one equation. I do with much passion want to see better measuring techniques. I basically begged for about a year to get my BDNF measured. I was shocked at the number of people who should know the how and the where of it could not help me. Now, I'm not that interested for myself, but do want to see better ways than puncture of the brain and pseudo okay scans to track brain inflammation.
I don't foresee that these measurements will be coming from our disease field of research; likely from others and likely from military funded research.

With that said, I'd like to say that recovering from injury or pain and therefore then the stoppage of those brain signals will indeed help the brain recover from inflammation. If let's say brain inflammation is akin to a sore throat, stopping speaking will help the throat test and recover from its injured and inflamed state. There are many aspects of inflammation though. Learning about the cytokine storm has definitely help educate me that's there's more to be discovered. And also as there are different schools of neuroplasticity training and they vary and disagree already, coming to a consensus even with my future Magic dolphin AI black hole telescope math scan brain wave and enzyme measurement tool version 259.... probably won't bring consensus either.
I was really happy to nearly cut off my toe --- an act that accidentally took place about 3 days after I noticed my severe ME pain was really gone. Had this happened a few years ago, I likely would have not only been in a crash but vomited from the amount of pain and nausea tfrom the increase of stress and from an additional new pain signal the already inflamed brain had to manage.
Perhaps you know this scenario all too well. I sure hope you don't, because it's just awful.
All these signals that we have telling us about pain, lack of energy or non-working neuro-muscular pattens is too much for our inflamed brains. I'm of the school of thought of getting rids as much as is safely possible to help the brain manage its own recovery slowly.
Perhaps you've read about how the lucky patients who do make it off of a covid19 ventilator have a great deal of shock and trauma as their brains are coming back into full consciousness--- this is why I added the "as is safely possible to help the brain manage its own recovery slowly."

It took me months of 1.5-3 hours several times a week hooked up to a neuroplasticity device to have the coincidental benefit of tuning into and then having the brain itself do the work of erasing those constant pain signals.
I was just along for this experience and it happened without my conscious direction. Neuroplasticity will differ in everyone. And maybe because I had my focus on fixing other things and knowing I needed new working patterns for swallowing and chewing and keeping all the things working in my skull and neck and throat and chest and stomach helped me achieve this grand side benefit.
I still needed the nutrients, particularly the IV NAD which I'd eventually months later discover were key to bringing peace back to my brain, i.e. low inflammation state or at least a manageable state.

There's lots of research how 3 months of riboflavin can halt certain symptoms of migraines and/or how a ketogenic diet for 6 months can too. Many brain researchers understand migraines to be categorized as micro seizures and they can be classified as inflammation bursts. The brain needs a great deal of steady and surplus nutrients to heal and hopefully over time will mean less or "manageable" inflammation (thank goodness for sleep and the glymphatic system).

 

[andyguitar]

And maybe because I had my focus on fixing other things and knowing I needed new working patterns for swallowing and chewing and keeping all the things working in my skull and neck and throat and chest and stomach helped me achieve this grand side benefit

Yeah I get your drift (probabably!) As we are getting a bit off the subject of the thread how about you start a new one on this subject?