My name is Len Ochs. I'm the person who developed the LENS. I continue to develop it and train professionals to use it. The person who used the LENS with you may have been a doctor of some kind, but he didn't do a good job of assessing your sensitivity, or what led to the seizures you had. We also train people to not use a cap -- so I do even have a question about whether you really received the LENS at all, or just something that was called the LENS. In any case you certainly had way too much done to you.
So I apologize to you for what sounds like a really bad experience with someone we trained who should have known better. The other side of the story is that had you come to us for PCS evaluation and treatment we may have only given you one second of treatment, which might have upset you, having come all the way from Washington -- but which might have been much better for the degree of sensitivity and reactivity you show. We probably as well would not have treated you the next day. So each person's problems and characteristics can be quite unique.
In our training of the LENS providers we spend a huge portion of time going over how to assess a client's ability to make good use of the LENS. We discuss which approaches to use, how much, and why. This provider didn't get it. I feel badly for what you went through.
My warmest wishes,
Len Ochs, Ph.D.
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Originally Posted by lopi
I decided I was going to have LENS Neurofeed back Therapy. I researched and read the books and I really thought I had found my answer everything I read really explained everything I was suffering from.
I have PCS from a Motorcycle accident 4 years ago and have been having sensory problems, sezuires, dry heaves, and not functioning at all have not been able to work, or do dinners, travel everything I used to do.
I received my first treatment last week; I traveled to Vancouver to see a DR. that specilizes in Brain injuries and talked to him several times. I had a brain map on Monday which even that made me feel off, but I just thought it was all the noise in Vancouver (very noisy city) and had my LENS treatment on Tuesday. I really thought that was so simple I did not feel that much and the treatment itself took just a minute it took more time to put the cap and the sensors on than the actually treatment and when it was over we did some deep breathing and a short meditation. How could anything so non invasive do any harm.
I took the train up from Seattle first mistake, but on the way home I had to get off at the first stop I had 2 seizures on the way home and really thought I was not going make it.
So by the time I got home I was so tried I went to bed and I slept for 14 hours I could not wake up. That happens sometimes after a seizure and I had to stay in bed all day.
The next day I had to go to town and I was not gone for more than an hour and I was so overwhelmed I was dry heaving and tried I had to lay down.
The rest of the week I felt like I was having an outer body experience I was so disconnected I was in no condition to drive or go anywhere I tried to talk on the phone but I could not form sentences together just very spacey. By Sunday my tics and twitches were back and I was dry heaving all day. I was restless yet if I tried to get up I thought I was going to fall over, it was like my brain said one thing and my body would not follow.
When I was researching LENS the info I saw had no side effects and I thought it was a lot like homeopathic if it did not work it would just pass.
Not until I goggled adverse reactions and side effects in neurofeedback. They include, but are not limited to, anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, manic-like behavior, headaches, nausea, fatigue, sleep disturbance, anger and irritability, crying and emotional lability, incontinence, enuresis, increase in depression, decline in cognitive functioning, increase in OCD symptoms, increase in somatic symptoms, tics, twitches, seizures, slurred speech, loss of previous symptomatic improvements, and temporary disorientation or dissociation.
Which were almost all my reactions. The problem was that my brain is so sensitive and already in hyper mode 24/7 that the last thing it needs is more simulation.
LENS motto is less is more but for people with processing disorders less is way too much. The way I look at is to check that off my list and carry on. Having PCS for several years I know what works and what does not. Gone are the days that I go through a therapy because that was what I thought was necessary to heal.
Listen to your body and learn from it what it needs and not what other people think you need, and never give up. Everything happens for a reason and even if LENS did not work out for me the knowledge I gained from it was worth it.
My new Motto is no more sensory overload
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