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The Healing Frequency Music Project When my physical therapist told me about Wholetones, I thought they were just another binaural beats type gig (I’ve pretty much tried them all), but when I went home to research them and listened to the samples, I could tell they were different than any other sound therapy I had ever heard. When I read the story of how they originated, and the healing testimonies, I just about flipped. I’ve been listening to them ever since and am totally addicted. I’ve seen great results, including pain relief (especially headaches/migraines), better sleep, a greater ability to focus on tasks, relief of anxiety and depression symptoms, and an overall improvement in sensory processing difficulties. I even turned my husband into a Wholetones junkie as well and I will tell you, it works amazing to calm a baby. Wholetones is now pretty much the soundtrack of our life. There are 7 main songs in the Wholetones collection, each one lasting 22 minutes. Each song has a special frequency with a specific therapeutic purpose. For instance the 396 hz song Open Door is very helpful for calming and restful sleep, whereas Desert Sojourn (417 hz) really helps get the brain to a focused state when you have to accomplish a project. You can listen to the samples in the video above. But the benefits of listening to the Wholetones frequencies don’t stop there. I have heard powerful testimonies of healing and recovery from individuals who were using Wholetones as a listening therapy to activate their body’s God given healing power and potential. I personally bought the large kit for about $150 that included, a book, CD set and DVD/ Blu ray set. You can also purchase a kit with just the book and DVD/Blu ray set , or a kit that just includes the Book and CD Set . If I were to purchase right now though, I would probably just get this special speaker that comes with all 7 songs already loaded on it. This wasn’t available when I made my purchase a couple years ago. If you are interested in learning more about Wholetones, check out their website and see for yourself.

A device that I have seen great success with in my own healing journey is the Fisher Wallace Stimulator. It is FDA cleared and commonly used as a drug free alternative to treat insomnia, depression, anxiety, and pain. Many people have also reported better cognitive function, less tinnitus, better sensory processing, lower cortisol, more energy, etc. I love how unlike a drug which works to replace what the brain is not doing, this device actually stimulates your brain to heal and do what it is supposed to do in the first place. Some people might be hesitant that it uses electric to stimulate the brain, but it helps to know that our bodies are already full of electricity, especially in our brains! This device just comes along side to help our brains do what they were designed to do. My personal experience with this device has been awesome. At first, it took a little bit of getting used to. I needed to sit down during sessions to keep my balance. Now, I can walk around with it on just fine. I saw great improvements with my sleep, mood and energy levels. It was a gradual improvement though. One of those things where a couple weeks in, I just noticed I felt better and didn’t feel the need to supplement as much. I could get a lot more done in one day and think better. Then, I guess I was feeling so good that I didn’t think I needed it anymore and stopped prematurely. Sure enough, about 3 days later I felt exhausted, depressed and had just an overall lack of peace feeling. I was wondering what had just come over me. Then I happened to glance over at my night stand, saw my Fisher Wallace and remembered that I hadn’t used it in a few days. So I would highly suggest using it for the full 30 days to allow your brain to make lasting neuroplastic changes. Then, if you feel great, I’d follow the instructions to taper to a maintenance mode before stopping treatment. I have now had my Fisher Wallace for years, and even though I don’t need to use it regularly anymore, it has been very handy for acute problems such as bouts of insomnia, or when I had post-partum anxiety around that viscous 3 month hormone drop. That brings me to another great point. Fisher Wallace is an effective and much safer alternative to prescription drugs during pregnancy and breastfeeding. From the Fisher Wallace website : The Fisher Wallace Stimulator® works by stimulating the brain to produce neurochemicals such as serotonin, while modulating the default mode network and entraining alpha waves. The device treats insomnia but is not a sedative – instead, the device modulates the brain to produce a restful state that accelerates sleep onset and restores longer periods of sleep. FDA-Clearance Date: 1990 Medicaid Approval Date: 2017 Treatment Guidelines Patients use the Fisher Wallace Stimulator® at home for 20 minutes, once or twice a day on level 2. Patients with insomnia use the device within two hours of bedtime. Consistent daily use in the first 30 days is recommended. If mood and sleep symptoms are reduced but do not go into remission within the first 30 days, patients may continue using the device on a daily basis. The device has been on the market since 1990 without reports of negative effects resulting from long term use. If mood and sleep symptoms go into remission (no symptoms), patients may use the device on a “maintenance basis” – three to four times per week – or on an as-needed basis. There are no withdrawal effects associated with ceasing use of the device. The device may be safely used in conjunction with antidepressants and/or other medications. Patients should not reduce or cease taking medication without first speaking with their doctor. Fisher Wallace has come out recently with a newer device called Kortex  which is essentially the same device, but incorporates visuals with a virtual reality head set. I personally don’t think I would have been ready for anything visual like that when I first ordered mine because of my sensory processing difficulties, but I wouldn’t mind trying it now. I think I just like the simplicity of my traditional Fisher Wallace and the fact that I can wear it while folding laundry. Neither Hope Unfading nor I make any money from the purchase of Fisher Wallace Devices. It is just something I have found to be extremely helpful in my healing journey and want to share with others.

One night while doing some research, I came across this video on youtube from Dr Daniel Amen and it peaked my interest in SPECT imaging. When I hit sort of a plateau in my healing, I decided to give it a go to see if it would help me redirect my efforts into a specific plan for what was going on in my brain at that time. My spect scan experience at Amen Clinics was a 3 day event. DC is quite the hike from Virginia Beach so we stayed at an Airbnb. We drove up to Washington DC the night before my first appt, rather than early that first day because, I wanted the scan results to show what my brain would look like on a typical day and not after 4 hours of visual overstimulation in a car. On the first day, we had an appt with a historian to go over all of my medical history, which for me is alot, and we also did the concentration SPECT scan. For this test I was in a room on a computer doing a concentration task. In the middle of that task, a nurse came in and inserted a radioactive dye into an IV line that was already placed in my arm. Then after a certain amount of minutes, they took me into the scan room and took images of my brain to show what the blood flow and activity was like in my brain during that task. Of course, as a natural minded person, I was concerned about this radioactive substance (Technetium 99m) being injected into my body, but after looking over the facts about it which you can read here on the Amen Clinics FAQ page, I decided that in my specific situation, the benefits of the SPECT scan outweighed the possible effects of the substance. The next day we did a resting scan. So again, they prepared my IV picc line, and then this time, I sat in the same preparation room and tried to relax on a couch. After a certain amount of minutes, the nurse came in and injected the Technetium 99m into the line that was in my arm and left to let me continue to relax. After another certain amount of minutes, she came and escorted me to the imaging room where once again, they secured me to the table and took images of what my brain activity was like when I was at rest and the Technetium 99m was inserted into my bloodstream. After this scan, and a lunch break. I came back to the clinic for a set of cognitive tests that were done on a computer program. The third day was an appt with a Neuro-psychiatrist at the clinic who has been trained under Dr Amen to analyze the scan results, my medical history, and cognitive testing scores. She explained very clearly what the scans showed was going on in my brain, and went over some options for a treatment game plan to achieve the next level of healing from my brain injuries. She also ordered some follow up blood work based on what she saw for further diagnosis of some possible deficiencies or imbalances. It was so helpful to get an inside look at my brain. We could see exactly why I was still having trouble with certain symptoms. It was great to have yet another test and trained medical doctor, that could validate the struggle that I faced every day. It was also another opportunity for my husband to visually see the physiological reason for the issues that he would see on the surface or I would try to explain to him. The best part though, is that the scans gave the doctor some great possible strategies for treatment based on the results. She was able to tell me what prescriptions may or may not work for me if that is the route I chose to go, but she was also more supportive of natural ways that I could heal my brain based on what areas were struggling the most. This included things like a possible supplement regimen, therapies such as hyperbaric oxygen treatment or neurofeedback, and exercises such as ping-pong, yes ping-pong, to help wake up my under active cerebellum.

Many times people know there is something going on in their brain, whether they have lingering symptoms from a concussion, or are dealing with a chronic neurological illness, and so a doctor orderes an MRI or a CT scan, but the scans don’t show any remarkable findings. This often leads the doctors to believe that the patient’s symptoms are psychosomatic or just results of an anxiety disorder. This can be devastating to a person because they know they are sick, and that they are not making it up in their mind but there doesn’t seem to be any evidence to back up how they feel, and the condescending looks from a doctor reading a “clear” scan does not help one bit. The fact is, MRI and CT scans themselves are very limited to looking at the structural make up of the brain and the interpretations are also very limited to only what the radiologist is trained to look for. These scans can be great for showing abnormal growths or lesions, but in most cases they do not show the effects of a diffuse brain injury, toxicity, degenerative disease or the actual functioning ability of the brain. If you know there is something not right but you’ve been overlooked because a simple scan was clear, you may want to try more advanced imaging like SPECT or functional MRI. They are better at showing the effects from things like brain injuries/concussions, PTSD, Lyme, Autism, PDD, SPD, etc and even show the effects of toxicity from things like drug abuse, mold, or chemical exposure. The following is from the Amen Clinics website: SPECT stands for Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography. It is a nuclear medicine study that evaluates blood flow and activity in the brain. Basically, brain scans show three things: Areas of the brain that have healthy activity Areas of the brain that have too little activity Areas of the brain that have too much activity Then based on what we see, our job is to balance your brain—to calm it down if it is working too hard or stimulate it if it is underactive. More info can be found here on the Amen Clinics Website I would recommend anyone with any long term chronic illness to get a SPECT scan done. The brain is the control center for your entire body, so chances are if you have symptoms in other systems of your body but the organs themselves look fine, the underlying issue might be in your brain. Me getting SPECT Images taken of my brain at the Amen Clinic in DC An example of this was after I was in a car accident in 2006, I started to have severe digestive problems. I would be keeled over in pain for hours or even days at a time. I would vomit up things that I know I didn’t eat that day, but the day prior. When I went to a Gastroenterologist to try to figure out what was happening to me, he did what is called an endoscopy procedure to look at my upper digestive tract. The endoscopy was normal except for the fact that there was still undigested food left in it from the day before. No ulcers or other structural problems were detected with my stomach though, so he didn’t know how to help me. He put me on a drug that was supposed to help my digestion to “speed things along.” When that caused more pain, he changed it to another drug meant to “slow my system down.” After 3 days of not sleeping because the pain was so bad, I called him crying in frustration. So guess what he prescribed then? … an anti-depressant. I took it at first because back then I didn’t know better and I just blindly trusted Doctors and took whatever they prescribed. It wasn’t until I took it and literally felt like I was going to lose my mind, that I looked up what that drug was and stopped taking it, and I never went back to that doctor again. It wasn’t until I was diagnosed with a brain injury years later that I looked at my past medical records and realized that this whole episode happened in the months directly following that car accident. My digestive system was structurally fine but the organ controlling it, my brain, needed to be healed. He never thought to ask me if I had just had a possible brain trauma. Now, this is the first question I ask someone when they express a sudden onset of digestive problems. The brain and the gut are so directly connected that no doctor should ever treat one while neglecting the other. Many of my brain injury symptoms masked as other disorders and diseases, but now I know that it’s because my brain had lost the ability to control my body properly and now, I am so thankful to be getting that control back. I am a firm believer that if you can fix what is going on in your brain and gut. The rest of your body will follow suit, and SPECT Imaging and fMRI can be very helpful in pinpointing the root issue. Dr. Daniel Amen is a Neuro-Psychiatrist who realized that he was not able to help patients effectively because he too was just prescribing drug after drug based on a cluster of symtoms presented by the patient. He realized one day that a Psychatrist is the only type of doctor that tries to treat an organ without actually looking at it properly. He started to use SPECT imaging and saw many patterns in the scans that matched the complaints of his patients. He learned about what SPECT can show us about the actual blood flow and function in certain areas of the brain and how to help fix the issues, rather than just throw drugs at them and hope for the best. You can learn a little bit more about Dr. Amen and his clinics in this post. Read more about my personal experience with SPECT Scans at the Amen Clinic’s in this post.

IGG food intolerance testing has led to a huge breakthrough for me in my health. It tests for IGG antibodies in your blood to a variety of foods. If you have too many of these antibodies, they can wreak havoc in your body and attack your healthy tissues, including brain tissue. As you can see in the picture my casein, cow’s milk, whey, and yogurt were extreme which is common in brain injury, autism, auto immune disease, etc. I discovered this testing in 2012 and I have seen amazing results when eliminating these from my diet including no more leg pain and Restless leg Syndrome Symptoms. Part of our responsibility in healing our brains is to create the best environment in our body for that healing to occur. Some people are skeptical of this type of food sensitivity testing, but I have seen the power of it in my own health and the health of many others.

Neurofeedback has been such a blessing to me in my healing journey. If you have a brain injury, ptsd, developmental disorder, or any chronic illness, chances are the electrical activity in your brain is very abnormal. This can be tested with a Quantitative EEG, and Neurofeedback training can help the networks in your brain start to communicate better, allowing you to not only feel better but also creating a better environment in your brain and body for neuroplasticity to take place. Here I am watching Star Wars by using the electrical activity of my brain to play the movie. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?  #jedimasterliz There are brain centers, clinics, and behavioral therapy offices all over the country who use all different kinds of nfb to help their patients get well. Here is an educational podcast about nfb from the Train Your Brain Podcast with Dr Trayford, and here is an article from Psychology Today about it. This is another Informative page about Neurofeedback from the office of one of my neuro-psychiatrists. The left picture is training 2 channels. I did this 2 times a week at a local office and the right is me training 19 channels at the brain center I traveled to for 5 to 10 days at a time. Both have been beneficial in their own way.

One of the standard gene variants that my Integrative MD tests for is MTHFR or the Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase variant. MTHFR is an enzyme that adds a methyl group to folic acid to make it usable by the body. I happen to carry the homozygous c677t expression. It is estimated that about 10% of the population carries this specific variant and at least 40% of the population carries at least one of the different MTHFR variants discovered. I believe it is important to be tested for MTHFR expressions so you can know specifically how to adjust your lifestyle and nutrition to work with your genes and not against them. My husband also happens to carry the same expression so as a family, we have adjusted the way we live to better work with the gene expressions that we carry. We also believe in the principle of epigenetics, which tells us that we can turn genes on and off with our nutrition, lifestyle, and thought life. We may have been born with some extra challenges, but we do not have to be a victim of our biology. Some of the things that we do are: Take special supplements with methylated forms of B-vitamins so they are more bio-available for our bodies to use. For instance, to make sure our bodies have enough vitamin b9 we eat folate rich foods and/or take a methyl-folate supplement instead of ingesting the synthetic form of b9 called folic acid. Our doctor specifically put us on this supplement called Metabolic Synergy Avoid common toxins that may trigger reactions because of our body’s reduced ability to detox such as alcohol, heavy metals, etc. Avoid toxic stress since that further inhibits our body’s ability to methylate and detox, and focus on a simple lifestyle and positive mental attitude. Below are some links to resources where you can learn a little bit more about the little bit that we now know about MTHFR expressions. You can learn more about MTHFR and how to get tested in this post from Wellness Mama

Last April, I walked into this office in desperation. My barometric pressure sensitivity reached an all time high. BPS is common for people with a history of head trauma and quite annoying, but when I became pregnant, it became debilitating, and when I was 3 months post partum, the hormone changes caused full blown reactions at every pressure change (which is everyday here in VA Beach.) Most days I could barely breathe or carry my baby, I was so weak. One night as the pressure rose, and I literally felt like I was going to die. I asked God once again, to tell me what was going on and how to fix it. That same night, I came across a story about a pilot who had developed an allergy to barometric pressure changes and could no longer work. Then he found a Dr. who desensitized his allergy and helped him get his job back. I had never thought about the sensitivity being an allergic reaction until I looked up anaphylaxis and realized that I had just spent the last year of my life experiencing it, and what I thought was just crazy anxiety when the pressure rose, was actually me being on the verge of anaphylactic shock. It was a 6 hr drive to Charlotte NC to see Dr. Cushing. His methods were a bit unorthodox and to be honest, we had our doubts if his testing and techniques were legit. But after each treatment, I felt a big energy change, similar to how I feel right after neurofeedback or TMS, so I knew it was doing something. On the way home though, I was exausted and wondering if it was all just a waste. We got back home just in time for a huge barometric pressure change that would have normally left me in bed, but I was able to function! I went from a full blown reaction to little more than a headache, and tinnitus. Which compared to pre-treatment was a breeze! Dr. Cushing uses his own patented technique that he calls AllerCease which is a quantum physics based treatment similar to NAET but more comprehensive. If you are unable to travel to see him, try looking to see if someone in your area offers NAET.

When I mention barometric pressure intolerance, people usually think of storms or rainy days, but changes in the air pressure happen even on a beautiful 75 degree day with barely a cloud in the sky. To someone who is sensitive to it, even the slightest changes can be debilitating. I used to think pressure sensitivity was in peoples minds, but now I know it’s in their brains. If you think you may have an intolerance to changes in barometric pressure, I encourage you to download a pressure tracking app to really find out if your symptoms match up with the changes or not. The one I use is called “pressure tracker” in the google play store. And stay tuned with me because I am traveling to see a doctor next week who has helped others overcome this very issue.

It takes a lot of time energy and financial sacrifice for everyone involved. Don’t you dare think for one second that you aren’t worth the trouble. For so long, I felt like I was just an expensive burden and I felt sorry for my husband that he was married to me. I thought of all the fancy cars and tech devices (he’s an IT guy) that he could have had if it wasn’t for my brain injuries. I thought of all the debt we accrued when I could no longer work a job and my medical bills piled up. I thought of all the fun he would have with a healthy wife that he could go places with and not have to worry about what she could or couldn’t do, or how sick she might get. This kind of thinking was exactly what the enemy of my healing wanted to devour me with. He wanted me to back out of doing the expensive testing and treatments and make me feel like giving up and remaining sick because “I was already just too much trouble on everyone around me.” This is when I had to learn to place my self image in who I am and not what I can or can’t do, or how much I thought I added value or cost to others. I can’t think of a better day to post this than Good Friday when we celebrate the greatest sacrifice ever made for each and every one of us so that we can be saved, healed, and made whole. It doesn’t matter if you are a perfectly healthy, capable, successful person or someone who can barely get out of bed or function at all. Jesus died for us all the same, because we are all equally valuable to him. So quit allowing society to determine your self image. Quit comparing your unimaginable value to the silly material things and vacations that your family is missing out on. Choose to see the good that God is working in your situation each and every single day, and the positive character building impact it has had on you and those around you. No matter what it takes to see your healing manifest, understand that you dear, are worth it all.

Sensory processing disorder is common in people with brain injury, PTSD, and developmental disorders and some of us might not even know we have it. 6 years ago I was diagnosed with Narcolepsy because I could not stop falling asleep in the middle of the day. Whether I was at work on the computer or in a car or at the grocery store, my brain would just completely shut down. When I started neuroplasticity brain therapies my brain map showed alarming amounts of delta (deep sleep) brain wave activity had taken over my whole front half of my brain. Once we trained those waves down to help me stay awake I realized that my brain was producing those brainwaves to defend itself from the sensory overload I experienced in busy places. My sleep was much better, but I couldn’t even stand to be in a grocery store or look at a computer screen. This made me realize that my narcolepsy was probably caused by my sensory processing disorder that I didn’t even know I had. Proper auditory and visual processing testing later confirmed this. Now time for a victory story. A year ago I could barely walk in this store and if I did go with my husband, I could be of no help picking anything out. I just walked around like a zombie and could not even hold a conversation. I’m still a work in progress, but after a year of hard work doing my vision and auditory therapies, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and taking the right supplements, here I stand in the store, awake and able to process the environment around me enough to pick out the foods we need and have a conversation with my husband at the same time. I’ve come a long way baby! Praise God!

Another common brain injury symptom is vestibular disorder. There is a wide range of vestibular symptoms associated with brain injury including dizziness, vertigo, imbalance and spatial disorientation, vision and hearing changes, extreme fatigue, etc. Many people are thought to have things like Meniere’s Disease or an autoimmune inner ear disorder when really they have an undiagnosed concussion or other type of Brain Injury. Some survivor’s vestibular symptoms will be constant, but most of us have episodes throughout the day that are brought on by triggers. Have you ever been sick from a roller coaster? Someone with a brain injury will commonly get just as disoriented and nauseated from simply walking in a busy place, looking at a tv or computer screen, being in a room with large mirrors/echoing sounds, etc. It is often hard for people without brain injuries to understand why we can walk and talk totally fine one moment and be falling over or unresponsive the next.  The good news is there are so many cutting edge tests and therapies available, like VNG and CAPS testing, PONs devices, and more. To learn more about how many of us are overcoming and healing our vestibular challenges, schedule a coaching session or join us on our Healing Warrior Meet Ups. We would love to have you!