Mark

April 30, 2005

Mark,

I was watching Larry King Live just the other night and he had several people on

the show who suffered from migraines and after hearing what happens to them when

they have a migraine reminded me alot of seizures.

All of the migraine sufferers on the show agreed that their migraines were

mainly due to stress and two of them (his wife was one of them) had auras that

came before the migraine, they also would throw up, were very sensitive to

light, sound and smell, sound familiar? A couple of the people mentioned that

they had been on I believe was Topamax which we know is also used to treat

seizures.

Larry's wife explained what happened during one of her auras and that was that

she would lose part of her sight, she also explained that right after the auras

that she would have the migraine and sometimes she would have to be taken to the

ER because they were so bad. She also mentioned that these migraines could last

as long as 5 days and she could not function during this period. Much of what

she described about her migraines sounds alot like seizures and has been

mentioned by seizure sufferers. So I think that epilepsy and migraines are very

much related.

Grace

Mark Schauss <schauss@...> wrote:

Great discussion here!!!

A few comments, zinc is very important in improving the effectiveness of

glycine, GABA and taurine (all neuroinhibitory amino acids) in the brain.

Some AED's also can cause zinc deficiencies which in turn can make one AED

dependent because if you lower zinc enough, only the meds can control the

situation. This is something we learned with my daughter Tasya. The

balance of minerals you mention is excellent as well as they are very

closely related and over supplementation of one can have a cascading effect

on the others. Adding heavy metals to the mix can wreck havoc with these

balances as well (organic or non-organic heavy metals, doesn't matter they

are both toxic). Aluminum often works in opposition to Zinc especially if pH

is messed up.

The glutathione issue is critical and from the studies we've been doing we

find most epilepsy and autistic children greatly depleted. One could write

a book on glutathione alone as it is so important in human health and

definitely in epileptics. Many AED's also deplete glutathione as well.

The insulin / glucose issue is also quite important with epilepsy. You have

things right on Mindy. Zinc is also important here as it can help create

sugars in the body. An interesting experiment to show how its done although

it isn't all that pleasant is to suck on a zinc lozenge and puff on a

cigarette. You begin to get a sweet taste in your mouth, sugar. The zinc

has a catalytic effect to create a basic sugar. It does the same in the

body which is why it is so important in keeping a steady flow of glucose

instead of the spikes and drops we see in zinc depleted individuals.

With the dyes and additives, an area I'm looking into is the production of

pro-inflammatory cytokines caused by them as well as by some foods. I know

that Tasya can be guaranteed a nocturnal seizure if she gets some MSG or a

food with lots of red, yellow or blue food dyes. We are not sure if there

are other foods that do that to her and were unaware of a good test for it

until recently. The LEAP MRT test from Signet Diagnostics tests for these

cytokines from 123 foods and 27 food additives. I will be running the test

on Tasya in the next week or two and will report back to the group on the

results. They have had remarkable results from using their test with

irritable bowel syndrome and migraines. It is the later issue that has me

most intrigued as migraines really are just different manifestations of a

seizure.

Mark Schauss, MBA, DB

www.carbonbased.com

[ ] Re: glucose 6 phosphate dehydrogenase(now ADHD)

I'm not a member of epilepsy research. I'll check it out.

Lots of causes of ADHD. One of the most common I believe is diet

related. High glycemic foods. Hypoglycemia. The blood sugar rises

after the high glycemic foods and then it drops to nothing when that

spike is gone. Then the brain is forced to search for more fuel.

In these cases, the fuel of choice is adrenaline. Someone being on

adrenaline all the time can be fairly intolerable.LOL. I think that

my other daughter's system switches over to glutamines for some

reason. I only have a slight understanding of this so I may be

interpreting this wrong or have a very elementary grasp of this.

If you've seen MRI scans of ADHD kids, the glucose flow to the

frontal lobes of the brains in ADHD children is very low. The

frontal lobes being the executive functioning.

In addition, food dyes and additives do have an effect though people

choose to believe they don't. Yellow #5 is reportedly a known zinc

depleter, for example.

In a study that came out awhile ago, children supplemented with zinc

did just as well as those on prescription meds.

Zinc has a relationship to copper. Copper has a relationship with

iron. Iron has a relationship with insulin. Back to the sugar

control again.

Unfortunately, supplementing too much zinc can knock copper out of

balance in no time and still cause problems. I'm still learning

about that too.

Low copper is interesting as well. Not enough copper can be one of

the causes of anemia. (As well as low B12).

There is a lady with a website (www.autismhelpforyou.com) who

maintains that schizo,autism,alzheimers,etc are ALL really epilepsy

at its worst. All epilepsy related. I really think this basic idea

is dead on. She did a bunch of research on insulin and iron. You

have to find it on her site...it's an extremely busy looking site,

but the iron insulin info was fascinating. On her site, she

discusses how schizo used to be treated with insulin in the 1930s.

I don't give my daughters any supplements at this time except for

enzymes (those rock!) and prescribed carnitine for my youngest. I

do give them a multivitamin that has no iron. That was very

difficult to find!

I'll post some more of what I've learned later. I have to head out

to school now.

Mindy

> Mindy,

> This is a fascinating insight. Are you a member of the group

> epilepsyresearch ?

>

> My son was considered highly functioning ASD and ADHD. He did test

low

> for cystiene. His seizures are controlled now using the modified

> version of the Atkins Diet that s Hopkins is doing.

>

April 30, 2005

Absolutely Grace. Migraines are very much like seizures in so many ways.

When my wife and I were looking backwards in our families history for any

epileptics all we could find was both of our mothers had a history of

migraines. Genetics? Maybe. Still, something to think about.