For your consideration... the CFS/MCS and Acquired Brain Trauma Connection

[Guest guest]

Recently I became familar with the work of Dr. Amen in

Fairchild, CA. A child was evaluated by Dr. Sheila Bastien (Berkely,

CA) - who is probably the top neuropsychologist in the world dealing

with children with CFS. Dr. Bastien was the neuropsychologist who

did most of the evaluations at the Incline Village outbreak, as well

as evaluating most of the children at the update New York outbreak

(Dr. Bell).

Dr. Bastien asked that the child has a SPECT scan done by Dr. Amen.

Dr Amen is a neuropsycharist (certified in Adult, Child and

Adolescent Psycharity) and nuclear brain imaging. His site at

http://www.brainplace.com is excellent. He was a major player in

getting ADD and ADHD recognized.

The result of the SPECT scan was 18 out of 34 regions of the brain

had abnormal blood flow. Subsets of these patterns match those of

patients presenting with hyperfocus(unable to concentrate on more

than one thing at a time), depression and brain trauma. As a result

of this I found a sound clip of Dr. Amen where he describes having

done over 100 SPECT scans on CFS/MCS patients and finding that most

of them have " a very toxic brain " which is likely caused by

infections. He does not treat the infections, but refers to other

MDs for example, Dr. Saputo in Laffayette, CA.

Acquired Brain Trauma/Injury lead me to

http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/specialed/docs/moe_abi_resource_rb0116.pdf

which the child's MD described as " exactly what this CFS kids needs

for educational planning " . One of the DOMINATE CHARACTERISTIC of

brain trauma is FATIGUE.

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Bottom line: A SPECT scan will likely establish a multitude of brain

abnormalities in most CFS/MCS patients (it IS in your mind -- but as

an organic disturbance). This has been shown in Dr. Hyde's excellent

book on CFS. The cause of this trauma may be infections or hypoxia

(lack of oxygen - the #1 cause of acquired brain trauma) due to

hypercoagulation. If infections are involved, there are likely

neurotoxins [but reducing neurotoxins is only a symptom relief and

not eliminating the infections producing the toxins]. I have heard

that Hemex (http://www.hemex.com) will provide the names of some MDs

that test for hypercoagulation. I know of those in Kansas City, SF

and Seattle. For infections, PCR is likely the best route because

the brain barrier may keep many antibodies confined to the brain.

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Again, something for your consideration....