Neurofeedback and Physical Therapy
Dec. 11th, 2024 06:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lillilahToday, I started neurofeedback and physical therapy. (Disclaimer: some people have trouble with neurofeedback. Because I'm sick from a medication rather than real life trauma (and because I'm me), my experience may be different from that of others. I have known people who will take someone else's experience and assume it will be theirs. Don't assume, please.)
What my neurofeedback was like:
There was a giant TV. I was in a chair with my feet up with an EEG net on my head (but no goo in my hair!!!!). On the TV, there was a kind of video game. You choose a flying avatar. I chose fantasy creatures, so mine was a griffin (until I unlock the next one). The goal is to get the avatar to fly through a hoop (it is swooping about the sky over water under pretty clouds). To get it to do that, you need to make good brain waves. It isn't terribly hard to make good brain waves occasionally, but it was a challenge to do it consistently. At one point, I was doing super well. Then, I started to get tired, and it worked less well. I did it for 20 minutes (the minimum), and by that point, my head hurt. I don't think I've ever had pain from focusing before. At least, not like this. Now, though, I understand how they could use this for focus-related problems. Anyway, the technician/therapist gave me some time to rest, and as soon as the pain stopped, my brain was like, "Let's do that again NOW!!!" We didn't though.
What came next was the physical therapy. Same nice guy helped me. Long story short, he thinks the problem is that I'm tensing up my muscles in my back and neck and that is screwing up my ability to move. It has always seemed like it was about the anxiety, and this is what he thinks. But what about the knees buckling? Or my inability to walk when I am tired? We'll see. I'll be seeing this guy every week, so if the knee buckling starts up, I'll let him know. If it just magically goes away (because we're treating other issues), then that's fine.
I expect that having my brain really excited about this will make it easier to get myself into town for the appointments. Hopefully, this is also a good sign.
What my neurofeedback was like:
There was a giant TV. I was in a chair with my feet up with an EEG net on my head (but no goo in my hair!!!!). On the TV, there was a kind of video game. You choose a flying avatar. I chose fantasy creatures, so mine was a griffin (until I unlock the next one). The goal is to get the avatar to fly through a hoop (it is swooping about the sky over water under pretty clouds). To get it to do that, you need to make good brain waves. It isn't terribly hard to make good brain waves occasionally, but it was a challenge to do it consistently. At one point, I was doing super well. Then, I started to get tired, and it worked less well. I did it for 20 minutes (the minimum), and by that point, my head hurt. I don't think I've ever had pain from focusing before. At least, not like this. Now, though, I understand how they could use this for focus-related problems. Anyway, the technician/therapist gave me some time to rest, and as soon as the pain stopped, my brain was like, "Let's do that again NOW!!!" We didn't though.
What came next was the physical therapy. Same nice guy helped me. Long story short, he thinks the problem is that I'm tensing up my muscles in my back and neck and that is screwing up my ability to move. It has always seemed like it was about the anxiety, and this is what he thinks. But what about the knees buckling? Or my inability to walk when I am tired? We'll see. I'll be seeing this guy every week, so if the knee buckling starts up, I'll let him know. If it just magically goes away (because we're treating other issues), then that's fine.
I expect that having my brain really excited about this will make it easier to get myself into town for the appointments. Hopefully, this is also a good sign.
