We decided to bite the financial bullet and try Neurofeedback, I don't want to jinx it but I am quite excited and cautiously optimistic about what I have seen so far! So much so, that we have decided to hold off on trying new meds(the first ADD meds worked well for 3 months and then stopped working completely while she was away at college).

I am going to describe it in case anyone else here is curious like I was for details:
Last summer when we first tried medication, the first thing my DD noticed was that while on the meds, she could quickly answer multiplication questions which she could never do before. After her first two sessions of NFT, she can do that again! We are doing 2 back-to-back sessions each visit with a 20 minute break in between since it's a long drive.

DD said she could feel her brain doing something active, sort of like a painless headache was the best she could describe it. On the drive home after sessions 1 & 2, I threw a bunch of multiplication questions at her and she rattled off the answers without hesitation. An hour later I threw out a double digit question out of the blue and she said "I guess it has worn off...no, wait..." and then she gave me the correct answer, after that she could again rattle off the answers quickly. She said when I threw the double digit question at her she felt her brain firing up again, the same feeling she had right after the session, and she was then able to once again pull the answers quickly. So it's like her brain is making new connections and strengthening them.

I am really intrigued, I got to watch a little bit of the first session and after completing a brain map, the therapist said he will be working out the executive function area (pre-frontal cortex?) first. She was hooked up to the computer and told to completely relax and with nothing but her mind make the yellow and blue bars that were gyrating up and down stay below the line at the middle of the screen, these bars were visual representations of her brainwaves at different frequencies, by learning to control them, she is teaching her brain to focus without frenzy. Once she got that down she moved onto cartoons for session 2: if she is focusing correctly, the cartoon is clear, when she stops, the cartoon goes dark. The cartoon is on a loop so in 1/2 hour she watched the same one 5 times, she said after 2 times it was boring but the therapist explained that this is also teaching her to be able stay focused even when something is not that interesting.

I asked a mom in the waiting room what she thought about it and she told me her son was nearing the end of his treatment (32 of 40 sessions) and it was like a miracle, he was a whole new kid. I didn't have the nerve to ask what he was in for, but I am going to assume ADHD. The kid was maybe 8-10 years old and he said he liked it, that he especially enjoyed the cartoons.

The therapist told me that from the brain map he could see too much activity during the relaxed state and they would work to remedy that. Of course I started worrying about him dumb-ing down her 142 VCI or PRI rather than speeding up the PSI and WMI to compensate for the 30-40 point gap. He said it's more about making more efficient nerve connections and learning to control when to transition from relaxed to heightened states and vice-versa.

He said one can usually expect to see:

-improved sleep after 10 sessions,
-a calming effect after 12 sessions,
-task completion after 20 sessions,
-overall much better functioning/self control after 30,
-normal functioning after 35 sessions.

I have read that for PDD-NOS or other spectrum issues it could take closer to 100 sessions and or could not be effective but he seemed to think this treatment also helps with those issues and he has been doing this for 16 years. He also uses this therapy on recovering addicts with great success, apparently it allows one to control OCD symptoms which tend to exacerbate addiction problems.

There is a Neurologist in Dallas that has been using this NFT to help people who suffer from seizures become seizure free.

It's quite exciting! If this works, I may go back to school and get trained/licensed to practice this so I can help people. Caution though: if you are considering NFT, make sure you go to someone who has had proper training, apparently anyone can buy the equipment and hang a shingle and I wouldn't want someone without serious experience and training to start messing with my neuro-connections!

DD will go back 3 times next week for 6 sessions which will bring her to 10, so theoretically, she could be sleeping soundly by next weekend!

Nik