CES Update 3

Just giving an update. Overall things are going pretty well. The CES unit is surprisingly effective for insomnia and good for overall mental health. I strongly believe that CES should be used as a first line treatment for headaches and migraines as that has been the clearest improvement. It is so impressive in that department that I no longer have exercise induced anxiety that would manifest itself in somatic sensations which would trigger anxiety. The analgesia alone in this type of technology is truly amazing. I would also like to note that CES also seems to drop blood pressure. By whatever mechanism, I suspect the blood pressure lowering is how relaxation/calmness is achieved. Or at least, part of the equation. So the higher pain threshold (analgesic effect) and lower blood pressure seem to be why it is used for anxiety, depression and insomnia currently.

In regards to OCD, I still have to use my cognitive-behavioral techniques. In other words, I don’t think it is thus far a replacement for SSRIs or ERP for moderate to severe OCD. It seems to be a good adjunct to both of these, though. I am pleased to have purchased it.

As a personal experiment, I did a session for 40 minutes at the highest available setting to see what would happen and well, I was anxious/agitated for a day and a half, with intermittent nausea and would feel like I was going to have a headache, but the headache never came. So, I would say that the CES unit is not a toy and really does have a direct effect on the brain. That said I feel really good (not euphoric, but very stable) right now which is a couple of days later after the experiement, so I’m not sure what’s going on. It is possible that for OCD one may have to be a little uncomfortable to get a more pronounced effect just like when undergoing ERP. I’m sure there is a happy medium. I’ve also been researching the waveform that alpha-stim uses and I seem to understand why it is the way it is. It is an attempt at using electric pulses to mimic acupuncture. So, the rapid peak is the needle being inserted and the interval in between peaks is the rotating of the needle at the site. This again, is my own speculation and only an experiment of n=1.