Fish Oil and relief of inflamation in the Right Insular Cortex (and sympathetic tone)
 

I had the opportunity on Monday to speak to a professor of Neurobiology at UCLA about a condition my 15 year old son has, and after we had been on the phone for close to an hour he asked me if I was a physician. I laughed and said no, but that I had tried to develop a rudimentary understanding of neuroscience as best I could in response to a chronic condition of my own. The conversation then switched gears as he asked me a series of questions about CRPS/RSD and I tried to express what I had learned in putting together the article on Right Unilateral Electroconvulsive Therapy Treatment for CRPS.

He then asked me what I was taking, and half way through the list interrupted me to ask if I was taking any fish oil? I said I was, and he asked "how much." I told him I was taking 2,400 mg. a day that had been prescribed by my cardiologist as a way of tryling to elevate my level of HDL, to which he replied that that was extremely important for reducing inflamation in the Right Insular Cortex of the brain and thereby controlling the tone of the sympathetic nervous system throughout the body. He also said the 2,400 mg. was just about the right dose.

Then it dawned on me, while I've been far from pain free, I've realized in the last couple of months that I've gradually improved over the last couple of years - there are fewer days when the pain hits an 8 or 9 - and wasn't sure what to credit it to beyond the periodic Zometa infusions, but sensed that didn't explain everything where the immediate effect of the Zometa was quite specific as to one particular aspect of the pain and this is more general, and that this is the same period of time I've been on the fish oil: Omega-3 to be exact.

I offer it for what it's worth. Look at it this way, it's cheap and it's legal.

Mike