Syntonic Phototherapy And The Ans

[jem15]

I'm still trying both traditional and non-traditional things to try and help my POTS symptoms since nothing has been working so far(no responses to meds, supplements, diet, exercise, etc yet...) A weird "alternative therapy" was mentioned by the neuro-optometrist I see for "visual-vestibular dysfunction". I was trying vision/vestibular therapy, various prism glasses, etc. but nothing has really been working. We got on the topic of hormones affecting vestib. stuff, and he said there's an alternative type therapy called Syntonics (you can look on the College of Syntonic optometry's website for more info or google syntoic phototherapy).

Like some other alt. therapies, there's not a lot of official scientific data behind it, but it's one of those things he says sometimes you see results from and you know it worked. It tends to be used for certain vision things, but he was saying there's a theory it can affect the hormones and when I read more about it, I saw it talks about it affecting the ANS and balancing it. So this peaked my interest with the whole dysautonomia thing. My dr says he's certified in it, but hasnt done it in a while, but basically it's a form of color therapy, there's a special machine and like you look at various color light waves and certain colors are supposed to do certain things. He's gonna have to do some research and check with colleagues as to how to try and apply it to me on a more general level, but I told him I can be like an experimental case.. as long as it's not harmful, which it doesnt seem to be, we could experiment with it and see what happens. So I think I've hooked him into trying this, cause he's lending the machine to experiment with for free. i cant pick it up for another month or so, but just wondering if anyone ever heard of/tried this before? Ha, i know it sounds wacky, but at this point, i'm so desperate it, if it's not gonna make me worse, i'll try it;-)

[lieze]

Wow that's really interesting.

Please let us know how it works for you.

I was trying a few weeks ago to use visualization and had done a search online to find out what color to focus on to heal my body.

I recall seeing a range of colors that were supposed to be useful.

[abnel]

Good luck Caterpilly, I really hope this gives you some relief from your symptoms and also helps heal at a deeper level. It doesn't seem all that strange to me that colours can heal, given that sound therapy can also help with various conditions. Please keep us posted on how you go.

[jem15]

Thanks, yea, we'll see how it goes, it's worth a shot!

[HopeSprings]

Interesting. Is this Dr. Vicci by chance? He is supposed to be the best in the area, but doesn't accept insurance and I couldn't afford him. I was diagnosed with visual/vestibular mismatch as well, by another Dr. who could offer just the diagnosis, but no help. I tried vestibular therapy for a little while, but it didn't help. I read a little about Syntonic Phototherapy and it makes sense in principle. Here's a tidbit:

Syntonics, from the word syntony (to bring into balance), refers physiologically to a balanced, integrated nervous system. Certain biochemical conditions in the brain need to be present before effective cortical plasticity and new functions can occur. Neurotransmitters trigger this biochemistry and allow for additional synoptic connections to initiate movement and growth in new directions. Colored light therapy can act as a powerful tool to stimulate the biochemistry of the brain through the visual system by way of the retinal-hypothalmus brain connection.

Please let me know if it helps at all - one of my worst symptoms is the way I see or perceive things. My vision is perfect, yet I can't "see straight" if that makes sense. I know it's my brain and not my eyes.

[jem15]

Yes, it is Dr. Vicci. He is crazy expensive, just got charged $200 for a quick followup, just talking to him for like 30min... and I wasn't going to see him anymore since the vision therapy stuff didnt work, and he's always so busy, it's hard to get a hold of him. I heard really good things about him, but I didnt have a whole lot of contact with him during therapy, so i was a bit frustrated. but i figured i'd have one last followup and that's when he came up with this syntonic thing and i tried to push him to do it with me as like a "case study" type thing.

And yes, i have good vision too, but the processing is messed up. I couldnt see Dr vicci for therapy, way too expensive and far.. but the Kessler Institutes work closely with him, they do his vision therapy programs. Vision therapy falls under OT.. you can see if your doctor can write you a RX to be evaluated for vision therapy or if they found anything in your optometry testing, even convergence insufficiency, you can get therapy. i actually saw another expensive neuro-optometrist before Vicci, since Vicci had a 6mo wait, he wrote the RX and I still went to one of the Kesslers and got the staff who knew/talked to Vicci. It was cheaper that way since Kessler was on my insurance plan.. don't know if that helps you, just a thought..

[HopeSprings]

Caterpilly - in search for cause of my "dizziness" this was my path: neuro-otologist said it's vestibular (inner ear) at first, sent me to Kessler for therapy. Kessler said it's probably not vestibular, it's my eyes, sent me to neuro-opthamologist. Neuro-opthamologist said, it's not the eyes (eye/brain), it's vestibular. Checked further with other neuro-otologists and neuro-opthamologists (with Dr. Lehrer mixed in there)-- no conclusions. Ended up back with original neuro-otologist - her latest comment was that the dizziness is not vestibular, it's "central" - my brain. Bottom line - they don't know! I may try Kessler again since it sounds like they know more than they did several years ago when I went.

Just curious though, since Vicci is so highly regarded-- what does he say is the cause of the problem? Does he provide any insight?

[jem15]

"Just curious though, since Vicci is so highly regarded-- what does he say is the cause of the problem? Does he provide any insight?"

No not really, he doesn't have any one thing he can point to as a cause, it's all very murky. He admits we don't really know exactly what's behind everything. All he says is that he can kind of point out similarities amongst patients with these "visual-vestib." issues. Like they share similar symptoms and triggers... so he feels "experienced" in this area since he's seen a lot of patients like that, and recognizes it when he sees it.

He did talk about some general causes, like if the vestib issues are more caused by the eyes... he feels this is cause of the person's lack of peripheral awareness/processing.. so when you start vision therapy, instead of starting with traditional "central vision" tasks, like for convergence, etc... he them do stuff with you that is more "peripheral" of a task. He also prescribes prisms glasses.. again with the goal of increasing the person's peripheral awareness.. then during therapy they add stuff with these "therapy prisms" which make the world look topsy turvy and that's more visual/vestib task.. my therapists added more movement/vestib activities, and that seemed to help me eventually perform better on the SOT test, though i didnt have less symptoms in daily life... and lastly they put more of the central vision tasks in.

He says the vision therapy/prisms help some people alot and they like loove the prisms, etc.. But when vision therapy didnt seem to help me too much.. ( i mean i got better at the tasks, just not a huge daily life difference, except maybe i kept my balance better...and i do still use the prisms now and then to take the edge off, but there's not a huge difference with them.. like mild) that's when he said.. well sometimes these vestibular issues are also caused by either neck problems (like maybe you were in a car accident or something) or hormonal issues. And that's when i said, yea, my hormones are a mess, and i get sick with periods, etc... and that's what made him think of the light thing for me. He said it takes trial by error to try and find out which area to treat from.. but he had to rule out w/vision therapy 1st..

Anyway, I kinda know how you feel, he's talked of sooo highly, that when i went to him, i kinda expected this all knowing guru, full of insight.. adn though he understood the condition, listens to you, and knew the symptoms and triggers.. and had some new ideas, like with the prisms.. i didnt seem to get much else beyond that.. and maybe cause he's super busy, but i wasnt seeing all this extra special stuff going on with my case.. the therapists were the ones who tried to make sense of things and try different stuff.. but he also said compared to his other vis/vestib cases mine puzzles him and is different, cause i dont respond like they do.. apparently other people have responded quicker and better.. sometimes immediately after putting prisms on... ha, so if you're one of those people, you may want to give it a try again... i got the most out of , or got the opportunity to try the most things with the OTs doing vision therapy at kessler, so if you can afford it, it might be worth a shot... or even the prism glasses might be worth a shot, and there's different kinds too.. like i had one for reading which brings things "up" and helps with convergence... adn then there were the Vicci ones.. which i think brought things "in" to increase my peripheral awareness.. those i use for walking or moving around or just non-reading type activities..

Anyway, dont know if that answered your question, but ha, basically, none of these drs really know yet, so it's just a matter of hearing all the theories and seeing if there's parts of any of them, that work for you, treatment wise.. vestib migraines is another theory of why all this happens... but i personally think it's all from the underlying dysautonomia... the ANS is messed up and it affects all the other systems...if the brain signals are messed up, it makes sense that then the signals going to the inner ear, eye, wherever would be messed up too.... ah, if only drs collaborated!! they see the same types of patients, but depending on who you see, you'll get a different diagnosis/answer

[Sara]

Look up NORA ( https://noravisionrehab.org/ ) or COVD (https://www.covd.org/ ) .

I had a concussion and am now suffering from many issues - including visual functioning and vestibular/posturography issues.

There are other neuro optometrists in NJ that may have more time/expertise - Dr. Tannen (father/son) in Hamilton, NJ have a residency program for neuro optometrists and are well-regarded. Their initial evaluation is 2 hours long and they take my insurance, at least.

Just a thought.