I suffered a stroke in December. I have made a good recovery and full of gratitude that it wasn’t worse. I am however weak in my speech and fine dexterity. Can anyone advise the best way to use my M1. i am a total newbie to this and not in the least scientific.
Solas,
Our host is probably the one who could give you the most information of stroke recovery and his book “Stroke of Luck” is on Amazon. (Don’t accidentally buy the $83 version. Unlimited Kindle has it for free.)
That being said, for stroke recovery, I would start with a TED Talk.
It is usually paired with a rehab therapy. Here is an example of it being used with hand therapy.
My understanding is that there is more than one way to use it. One is to stimulate the nerves to the brain and that can be from anywhere.
TMS isn’t the only thing which “works” and I say that because people use electric foot massagers, which stimulate the nerves at the feet and that is based on a study out of Hong Kong where the stroke recovery patients were 83% more likely to walk again if they used the electric foot massager. The concept behind that was stimulating the nerves in the feet. Vibration plates do the same thing and have been used sometimes for stroke.
The Brain That Changes Itself is a documentary and it shows a woman getting balance back by stimulating the nerves to the tongue.
Cold lasers and ultrasound and electric acupuncture are other technologies, which have been used.
TMS though has been used directly on the brain and the TED talk shows that.
I think the biggest part is doing the repetition of new things and these devices are meant to increase the chance of having the neurons applied to the function you are trying to get back.
Adjuncts would be use of aerobic exercise before or after therapy which increases BDNF
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23907078
Visualization worked for increasing strength after stroke even when no physical exercises were done. Remember that it is the brain, which is broken, visualizing was tested in studies and even people who didn’t exercise benefited from it.
8 hours of sleep at night are important. Again, it is your brain which needs fixing. (If you can’t move your hand, it is easy to think it is your hand, but it is your brain.) They did mice studies and it turns out that if you do the repetition of rehab exercises and do the visualizations, your brain will think you want to learn those things and will go over the information over and over again all night long and you get more of a neural pathway that way.
There are also nutritional things. Things like dark chocolate and berries and kale and nuts and seeds and avocado and broccoli and foods which increase omega 3’s. Don’t underestimate nutrition. Diet is often a big contributor to stroke. Try to clean up your diet.
Intermittent fasting increases plasticity - and by that I am a level of intermittent fasting which is 13 hours between eating dinner and eating breakfast. Meaning no snacks at night. Bob is doing a much higher level of it.
Here is an animal study to demonstrate the mechanism, but human studies haven’t happened yet that I know of. It is being used in Alzheimer’s, but studies take time.
As far as settings go, I would definitely do TMS on the brain itself. But alpha, theta and gamma waves and possibly corresponding binaural beats and lights pulsing in those ranges might help.
Here is a sample of a binaural beats on YouTube.
That is purely experimental, but strokes do mess up brain waves and gamma is being experimented with in Alzheimer’s recovery. Some of us are using it right now.
Mostly, I find the binaural beats calming and what I took away from brain plasticity is that if you use more than one of your senses you will get a bigger neuronal pathway. So, put on the essential oil infuser and put on some music and engage your brain from several directions at the same time.
Which types of functions are you trying to get back would be my question to you.
For instance, if you are trying to get back vision, there are vision training videos on YouTube for vision training and there are gadgets like pinhole glasses or like activeshade where your strong eye is allowed to see every few seconds.
If you have hand function issues, there are things like the music glove, which flint rehab sells and they have another exercising gadget.
If it is balance or walking, there are things like the antigravity treadmill, which you can get 3 sessions for $75 in many places. There are also underwater treadmills or pilates.
If you have more cognitive function issues, there are web sites with brain games and there are YouTube videos for it if you can’t afford one more thing.
Those all would be adjunct things, which you can pair with the M-1 and using the M-1 would strengthen the neuronal connections making those things more effective.
Flint Rehab is a great source of information. PubMed is an amazing source of information.
Hi
Thank you so much for your speedy and forensic response It is appreciated. My journey has already taken me on the same pathway. Norman Doidge lead me a way followed by Dr Mercola’s interview with Bob Dennis. I believe things happen for a reason, so Bob will do great things with his technology for stroke patients. I simply now would like directions on the application of my M1. not only for me but to assist other patients I have shared my stroke journey with. Kate x x
Kate, that is the part that is difficult. I just watch the videos of what the professionals are trying and I Google images of the brain and of the nerves and I try to start off with what they started off with.
Lots of them are using TMS and that is already a setting on the M1. Some of them are looking at the brain waves like alpha, beta, gamma, and theta and those are settings.
You either use it on the brain itself or on a nerve to the brain.
Maybe Bob can answer beyond that, but I think it is experimental even at the clinical level.
I had a stroke in July, used my M1, tries many different settings mostly on the base of my skull, and I found that it did not help me directly. It only helped me with secondary problems related to my stroke, such as various aches and pains and injuries sustained while learning to move again.
But people respond very individually, some tell me they get great benefits, others do not. The purpose of this forum is to have those people tell us what they did and how well it worked. Then we will look for patterns.
This will take time, and the more people share, the sooner we may start to see patterns of successful use arise from many inputs.
2 Likes
I appreciate your developing a forum for that type of information.
Sorry to Kate for dumping the whole truck load of stuff on you. I have brain problems and can’t always figure out when I am being helpful and when I am being obnoxious.
To me, the TMS work in the videos I shared is what I see as potentially helpful, but it has to be paired with rehab for that. The researcher who is using TMS chose one or two specific functions people wanted to get back and had them do the exercises over and over again for those over and over again and she did demonstrate that people got new neuronal activity even decades after a stroke.
But one of the examples I remember was that one person wanted to be able to iron clothes again and another person wanted to eat potato chips out of the bag. Those are specific goals, which were achieved using TMS and rehab. You are so much earlier in the process, so I really do suspect that you might be able to have similar if not better results.
But, I go back to the reality that it is all experimental, even at clinical levels.
Sorry again for writing too much. I had a relative have a stroke while I suddenly had brain problems and I do believe it has helped for my problems, but I never was officially diagnosed for anything and I still have so far to go as evidenced by a seriously low brain gauge score.
My only thought is that the researchers using TMS for post stroke repair were treating people who had strokes a long time ago, who were not ever expected to gain anymore function back.
They were measuring the new neuronal pathways, which were never expected to happen that long after a stroke.
I suspect that Bob was using something more like the Brain gauge and measuring function and skill improvement?
Just a thought.
Sigh. Some of us really do have significant brain problems and I have had such a tremendous improvement, but I am still so far off. It makes it challenging to interpret concepts.
The M-1 definitely helped me with sleep and with anxiety and depression and with transforming my mind about things like food. The results for those things were dramatic enough and the change in diet and starting to sleep after decades already affected my brain function. It is hard to speculate beyond that.
I also ask mischievously, “Bob, are you sure it wasn’t part of why you recovered beyond anything people expect?” Because you have a recovery, which is so not normal.
Not saying it is. That just is my internal question.
I admire that you would just tell the truth about your experience, and I know that even if TMS is an exciting new technology for stroke, that doesn’t mean that it will work for everybody.
I am going to shut up now. Sorry again. Some of us are passionate about all of this. By necessity.
It might be. But:
I do not want to give people false hope (too much of that on the Internet already)
I do not want to make false claims
I remain skeptical about any notion that PEMF fixes all things for all people
If it helped, I don’t really think it helped nearly as much as neuroplasticity exercise (the ones I discuss with Mercola and that I describe in my book on Amazon)
Bob,
I genuinely appreciate that about you.
That is why I chose your device.
I am coming more from the people who had strokes years ago and who have zero hope of further improvement because they missed the plasticity window. That group online is the group which seems to communicate that they get better results if they use something like TENS or Direct Current or Electric Foot Massagers or TMS or LLLT and PEMS if one of the devices people use. When I watched the TED Talk on TMS and stroke recovery occurring decades after the stroke, which they never thought possible, it was stimulating the nerves, which helped. The same thing for the stimulating the tongue for both balance and to have people “see” with their tongues and people who are recovering from spinal cord injury. None of those things happen without stimulating a nerve or stimulating the brain itself with something like ultrasound or TMS and PEMF is just one of the devices which does it.
When I read a patent application for using Ultrasound for stroke recovery, they said that the vast majority of people who try to do stroke recovery without TMS or Direct Current or Ultrasound end up with disappointing results.
That is what I see around me. My step-mother lost her independence and she is still doing rehab exercises, but she only got rehab results.
The TED Talk where they used TMS and did exercises, they showed the neuronal pathways and what they showed, which stuck with me was that the more parts of the brain engaged, the more pathways involved, the better the results and I think that was something TMS could accomplish, which regular rehab couldn’t. It stimulated more of the brain and caused more of the new neurons to be assigned to the function.
fwiw, I am vegan and have been most of my life. I believe humans are naturally herbivores and it’s best diet for clearing and cleaning pathways . I like to read and watch stuff by vegan health scientist Dr. Nick Delgado . He has some fun vids on youtube recently where he scientifcally shreds keto diet presentations. He’s 66 yrs old and world class weight lifter. He actually had a stroke when he was 23. As a result he changed his diet to vegan and never looked back.
which talk are you referring to. I cant seem to find one like that? x
Solas,
Here is one:
My understanding is that Bob, for instance, started doing plasticity exercises right away, within the part of the stroke recovery where there are special helper cells similar to stem cells, which aid plasticity, but they disappear after a few weeks.
There are a lot of stroke and brain plasticity videos in TED Talks.
I hope PEMF and other modalities are helpful for people with stroke. My opinion (not based on any data I have taken) is that PEMF is likely to promote neuroplasticity and general tissue recovery mechanisms and thus be helpful with most forms of brain injury. I think this is certainly possible. In my case, I have been in a phase of fairly massive neuroplasticity and recovery, so perhaps I did not perceive the added benefits of PEMF directly in my recovery, But it is certainly possible that they were there, and my recovery may also benefit from PEMF in the future.
Yes, you had exceptional plasticity.
I have heard of people having a first stroke and not recovering all the way, and then, having a second stroke and improving better than they were, because the second time, they took advantage of the “window” but I had never heard of someone developing extra skills past pre-stroke levels. Your case seems exceptional. But you were also the first person I have ever heard who started working on it in the ER.
I would agree that it might even be likely that someone in that high degree of plasticity might not notice a difference where people 20 years post-stroke suddenly being able to move their fingers for the first time would be so noticeable.
Prometheus,
I, too, am vegan right now, though only in the past year and a quarter.
I looked at the photo with Dr. Berg and what I am going to say is that Dr. Berg recommends 5% calories from animal products and 10 servings of low glycemic index vegetables, which is SERIOUSLY close to what Dr. Fuhrman recommends.
Dr. Fuhrman said that, for cancer, there was no real difference between vegan and 5% animal products.
Dr. Lederman shared a study where just adding 3.5 servings of vegetables and 1.5 servings of fruit and less than a serving of whole grains, plus 40 minutes of mild exercise and keeping alcohol to one drink a day or less, it lowered the heart attack rate by 75% even with eating meat every day.
With dogs, adding vegetables 3 times per week lowers the risk of cancer by 90% even with them eating meat - and even with them eating grain.
I say that to both sides because people tend to choose sides and start arguments and what I see is that Dr. Hyman calls himself Pegan and so does Dr. Oz and there is basically no difference between them and Dr. Berg and Dr. Axe and Dr. Fuhrman, who identifies more Whole Food Plant Based. Up until very recently, Dr. Ornish was doing his studies with the 5% animal guideline. He moved to Whole Food Plant Based vegan for the past few studies.
Anyway, at the doctor level, the multiple sides agree on 90 to 95% of things.
Fats are disagreed about even within the vegan community - where Dr. Greger uses the Adventist study and encourages an ounce of nuts and flaxseeds and moved Avocado to a green light food.
Dr. Ornish allows something like one walnut and Dr. Barnard allows nuts sprinkled like a flavoring, but he limits it. Dr. Esselstyn is no nuts.
Interestingly, VegSource is interacting with a doctor at a clinic in Italy, who says that his personal testing says that nuts lower arterial function, but the Adventist Study it was the nut eaters who lived longer.
We shall see how it all plays out.
I don’t see the bickering between the two sides as helpful and I feel like it has confused the whole world.
At the Food Revolution Summit (which is going on now) they spoke about how people believe that nutritionists are opposite about everything, but that is the inflammatory way that everybody communicates about things.
Plant Based Science London did a video on Paleo and there is a Vegan and Vegetarian version of Paleo now and the person who is the spokesperson for Paleo didn’t get her healing until she started eating high doses of vegetables, but she got her healing without going off of meat.
I am not trying to be a Devil’s Advocate to either side, I just know that BOTH Keto (Dr. Berg and Dr. Axe’s and Dr. Seyfried’s versions of Keto) AND Whole Food Plant Based are SO much healthier than Standard American Diet and my relatives went Keto and I went Whole Food Plant Based and at least they went off of sugar and processed food and other things and they are eating their vegetables.
I have been meditating on PEMF and stroke brain plasticity and found this from MIT about synapses and brain plasticity.
Then, I went back to try to figure out about PEMF and synapses and the science is above my head, but I feel like they are saying it works by the calcium channels
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep21774
“Exposure to ELF-EMF also potentiates PTP, a form of short-term plasticity, increasing its peak amplitude without impacting its time course. We further investigated the underlying mechanisms and found that calcium channel expression, including the P/Q, N, and R subtypes, at the presynaptic nerve terminal was enhanced, accounting for the increased calcium influx upon stimulation. Thus, we conclude that exposure to ELF-EMF facilitates vesicle endocytosis and synaptic plasticity in a calcium-dependent manner by increasing calcium channel expression at the nerve terminal.”
I am really, really, really not a science person. I try though.