So I’ve been doing acupuncture and a machine called the Ondamed as treatment for my Tourette’s. I thought I’d talk a bit about it. Not to convince anyone to do it because I honestly don’t know if it’d help anyone else since everyone’s different (I’m not an expert so take everything I say with a grain of salt)... I don’t know if it’s gonna stick for me... but if anyone’s curious I thought I’d share my recent experiences.
I kind of got fed up with Western Medicine, though I still take a cocktail of psychiatric meds for my TS, OCD, anxiety and depression. I’ve been able to greatly lower my dosage though, which I never thought I’d be able to do, and of course I was able to avoid Deep Brain Stimulation surgery, which is what my doctors had told me was my only option left. Of course these treatments aren’t a cure (and I’m not saying that). I do about one acupuncture and one Ondamed treatment a week. I’ve been doing the Ondamed for about a year now, and this was my 4th acupuncture treatment. They work well together, and on some of the same principles. My doctors communicate with each other and can build off what the other does. My acupuncturist has never had a patient with Tourette’s before, so we are learning together. She is really knowledgeable though (I’d heard about her for years) and eager to help in any way she can. The Ondamed is a machine from Germany that sends electromagnetic waves through you at different frequencies to detect different bacteria and things like that and also treat different things... I guess that’s the best way I can personally describe it? It’s completely non-invasive. I just put this neck-applicator on every time, and depending on the program she’s running I may have a band I hold on my stomach or a rope thing around my arm... it really depends! My doctor always scans my body first, and the Ondamed can pick up different things with its frequencies. It can’t tell if you have cancer or anything like that... but it can sense stuff like if your adrenal glands aren’t functioning properly (mine have said that a few times), any kind of bacteria or microplasma, it picked up Lyme Disease in me (which I knew I had) first in spirochete form, but then after we treated it a few times we got it “quiet” which meant it was in cyst form... Sometimes my stomach has felt off the week I’ve gone in and she’s picked up that I have a stomach bacteria that she treats right away for me and I feel fine after that. My doctor told me the Ondamed can sense STDs in people and she’s had to find a non-awkward way to tell them to see a gyno. My mom went in (she has some autoimmune disorders) and it sensed she has scar tissue from surgeries she got from a car accident when she was a teenager. It sensed her gold filling in her teeth. It REALLY helped me with my joint and muscle pain from Lyme Disease, and my doctor uses it on her husband for his arthritis. My doctor has patients with MS, fybromyalgia, etc. who I’ve talked to who had trouble walking before, and with the Ondamed a lot of their pain and symptoms have really improved. It’s really a godsend for a lot of people who have had trouble finding treatment in traditional medicine. Which brings me to my experience with the Ondamed and my Tourette’s. I originally started using the Ondamed for Lyme Disease, but once I got those symptoms under control and was able to finally get off antibiotics (thank you Ondamed!) we decided to try using it for my tics. Again, my doctor hadn’t had a patient with Tourette’s before, and there’s not a lot of data out there about Ondamed treatment with Tourette’s. There’s not a lot of data out there about Ondamed treatment with anything really (my doctor is trying to make a documentary and change that; get the word out there actually!). We started with some central nervous system programs. It’s really been trial and error. The first time we ran one, it was so weird. My tics literally decreased in front of our eyes as soon as the program started. My doctor and I actually started laughing hysterically, it was so weird! The tic decrease tended to wear off within a couple of days at first, and we’ve been seeing which programs help the most. So far we’ve noticed that for whatever reason, Interference Programs (programs that deal with the effects technology has on your body) with low frequencies help my tics a lot. Ones that deal with the connection between your right and left brain have helped too. Some programs can make my tics increase a TON right in front of our eyes. In fact, one time we ran a program, I can’t remember the specific one but it had higher frequencies (I don’t do well with those), and my tics jacked up immediately and I started almost seizing in my chair. It was really disturbing, and my doctor immediately shut it off and reversed the effects. I think it really upset her (she’s very caring and felt bad). There are some programs where there will be more than one frequency, and it’s so weird because you can see that once the Ondamed switches to a higher frequency, my tics will immediately start to increase. When it switches back to a lower frequency I feel a sense of relief and my tics quiet down, right before our eyes. Like some weird science experience. We’ve also played around with energy points; where we place the Ondamed applicators. Right now we are thinking my liver is a good place to target. It’s interesting because my acupuncturist, who specializes in Traditional Chinese Medicine, said that the liver is a wind organ in Chinese medicine, which means it would be what they would target to treat things like spasms... seizures.. and Tourette’s. So the Ondamed’s findings line up with Traditional Chinese Medicine. And when my acupuncturist felt my different pulses, my liver’s pulse was really bad (almost as if I had a fatty liver... sometimes I wonder with all these TS meds!). With the acupuncture, when she puts needles in certain points, sometimes my tics will immediately start acting up. So she takes them out and I’m fine. But we’ve found certain points that are really good for my tics and have significantly calmed them down in the past few weeks! She only puts the needles on my left side because I have tics mostly on my right side, and I haven’t done well with needles on my left side. One of the best points so far has been point zero I think it’s called, a point in my left ear. As soon as she put it in I felt a sense of release and my tics diminished. I also love the tops of my ears... she does those for anxiety! Which as we all know, anxiety can really affect our tics! The first 2 times she did points on my feet, but those were a little too strong and set off my tics a bit. We’ve found a good combination now though I think. I’m so much better this week than I’ve been in months! My acupuncturist also specializes in chinese herbs, so I may start those in a few weeks in addition to my meds. She said she’d probably give me ones that target the liver! Okaayyy so that was long, but here’s my weird alternative treatment regimen for now! I also am careful about my diet... I try to eat organic, gluten-free, low sugar, paleo... One of my doctors said as long as I follow that at least 70% of the time I’ll notice a huge difference. I do feel better when I get sugar out of my system and I don’t eat gluten. I’m not one of those gluten-intolerance people before you roll your eyes... I also have Lyme disease so gluten can mess with that, and I have an MTHFR gene mutation I found out which means I can’t process folic acid (often in grain products) or methylize folate completely... or detox properly, which probably also explains some of the liver stuff i dunno. Maybe this is all crap, but as long as it’s working for me (even if it’s a placebo effect) I’ll take it. I’ve done basically every TS treatment over the years... time for something new.