I tried a home-made version
transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) myself, by passing a battery-powered low voltage current through my bathwater while I was in the bath (this is called a galvanic bath, although galvanic baths usually pass current through the body rather than the head).
This bath approach has the advantage of not needing any electrodes, since the water itself evenly delivers the current to your skin, and therefore avoids the creation of hotspots and skin irritation where the electrodes are attached. Although you don't have the ability to target specific areas of the brain without using electrodes.
I did these galvanic baths daily for one week, but did not notice much, except that I found on the days I did these baths, I did not need my usual midday 45 minute nap, possibly as a result of the mild stimulating effect that the electric current produced.
In my galvanic baths, I used electric currents of comparable strength to those used in tDCS (
Wikipedia says for tDCS, up to 60 min and up to 4 mA daily is safe, so I based my galvanic bath current on that).
In the study on tDCS for ME/CFS, they used 2 mA for 20 minutes, placing the anode (+) electrode pad on the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and the cathode (-) electrode pad on the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The location of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortexes is shown in
this blog article.
But looking at the full paper
here on Sci Hub, it says:
Patient reported significant benefit early in the day during the first month of daily tDCS. We increased tDCS sessions to twice daily (6 AM and 12 Noon).
Over the next few months, he experienced full recovery with improved exercise tolerance and a return to physical exercise several times each week.
So it looks like the full benefits of this treatment only appear after a few months. Thus I may have stopped my tDCS experiments too soon, as I stopped after one week. After reading this, though, I am tempted to try it again for longer.
It's interesting how the study measured various physiological parameters both before treatment, when the patient had ME/CFS, and after treatment, when he was in remission:
Evoked Reaction Potentials: Pre-treatment visual ERP findings (156 ms, -12.6 mV) improved substantially at post-treatment (180 ms, -13.2 mV).
Heart Metrics: Heart-rate variability (25 ms) and total power (287 ms²) were both low at pre-treatment. Post-treatment heart-rate variability improved significantly (35 ms); total power improved substantially (511 ms²).
We performed qEEG analysis to assess brain wave states that might explain his full and unexpected recovery (see Fig. 1 showing Pre vs. Post qEEG after one year of maintenance tDCS). Before treatment, qEEG showed higher than normal incidence of alpha in the right frontal lobe (7-9 Hz), higher than normal incidence of alpha in both temporal lobes (7-9 Hz, left greater than right) and lower than normal inci- dence of frontal Beta (22-30 Hz). At follow-up, in full recovery, the qEEG showed more normalized incidence of alpha in these ranges at these locations, as well as normalized frontal Beta frequencies (22-30 Hz).
The authors note that:
The most notable change in the qEEG is reduced alpha (8 Hz) in the left temporal lobe, consistent with previous findings that implicate the left temporal lobe in ME/CFS pathophysiology. This normalization of temporal alpha likely reflects improved thalamic gating.
The study says that:
Maintenance treatment with daily tDCS and modafinil led to full recovery from ME/CFS, likely exerting synergistic effects on the brain and immune system.
So if I understood this correctly, it appears that he requires daily tDCS to keep his ME/CFS at bay; thus in this case tDCS is not a cure, but keeps his ME/CFS in remission.
Sounds like this man had mild ME/CFS though, as he was still able to work in teaching (those with moderate or severe ME/CFS are not able to work):
Presenting complaints: For the prior two years his life was severely circumscribed due to severe, persistent fatigue, with inability to exercise. He social life was curtailed as he focused his limited energy on teaching and his family.
Also, his ME/CFS was a little unusual in that he seemed to have intermittent fatigue, rather than the more continual fatigue symptoms that most of us here are used to:
His condition, likely virally induced decades ago, was characterized by recurring periods of extreme fatigue, lasting months at a time.