Mental Health Matters: Everyday Conversations for Well-Being 17 August 23

Everyday conversations regarding Mental Health 17 Aug 23 Live at 7pm BST

Theodore A. Henderson MD, PhD is president and founder of Neuro-Luminance Inc, which is bringing revolutionary treatments to bear upon traumatic brain injury, depression, Alzheimer’s disease, post-COVID fatigue syndrome, and other brain disorders. He holds three patents and three patents-pending. He has published in neuroimaging, psychopharmacology, dementia, photobiomodulation, and traumatic brain injury. He has over 70 publications in top research journals and has been cited in over 900 scientific papers. His recent book, Brighter Days Ahead, is featured on Amazon. Dr. Henderson will help you rethink brain disorders like depression and brain injury and introduce you to exciting new treatments which actually activate the brain’s own healing process.

Welcome to our channel dedicated to fostering open, honest, and enlightening conversations about mental health in our everyday lives. Here, we believe that discussing mental well-being should be as natural as any other topic. Join us as we navigate through relatable experiences, share practical tips, and invite experts to shed light on various aspects of mental health. Whether you're seeking guidance, looking to share your own journey, or simply wanting to expand your understanding, our channel is a safe space for meaningful dialogue. Let's break down the barriers, erase stigma, and together, prioritize the importance of mental health. Subscribe now and be part of the movement to create a more compassionate and supportive world for all.

In this series we will be exploring all aspects of mental health looking at addictions, suicide, PTSD, wellbeing, cancer, bereavement, physical and mental wellbeing, care for the carer, self preservation, relationships and any other factors around the subject.

We will look at what help is out there and what agencies you can call upon for help, where to turn too, what groups are out there, peer groups, professional help and where to find it, charities and how to seek their help and much much more.

If you would like to come on the show to highlight and issue or just want us to cover and issue then get in touch, you can join in the conversation every week by watching the show and commenting in the comments box, subscribing to the channel doesn't cost a penny and if you click the bell icon you will get notified when we go live also click the like button as it will also help the channel and please share it with your friends.

https://neuro-luminance.com/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C5MPDY8M/

https://www.tbi.care/

Deftly combining brain science with unforgettable case histories, I will explain exactly how the brain changes as a result of depression, traumatic brain injury, Long COVID, chronic fatigue syndrome, and other brain disorders. Gone are the daily antidepressants pills. Gone are the chemical imbalance theories. Gone are the recommendations to accept a disability. I will introduce your audience to revolutionary new treatments that activate the brain’s own ability to repair itself. Whether discussing ketamine and the miraculous way in which it actually works (having nothing to do with hallucinating) or describing multi-watt infrared laser therapy, I can explain these complex scientific concepts in easily understood terms. I take a sometimes poignant, sometimes gritty, no-holds barred, real-world look brain disorders. Imagine introducing your audiences to concepts like viruses in the brain can cause depression and chronic fatigue or that light can actually help heal

Transcript

Welcome to the Tim Heale Podcast, Ordinary people's extraordinary stories and Everyday, Conversations, Regarding, Mental, Health, and live awesome quizzes on a Tuesday. If you'd like to watch these episodes, rather than listen, if you'd go over to YouTube and type in Tim Heale Nine or Ordinary People's Extraordinary Stories, or Everyday Conversations, Regarding Mental Health or Live, or some quiz, you'll find it on YouTube and you can watch and see who I've been talking to. 

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00:00:40

You can also take part in the quizzes after the event and put your scores in the chat box to see who else has done well. You'll also find the links in the description below. thank you for your time. Boom, I'm in the room. Good evening everybody. Welcome to Everyday Conversations Regarding. Mental Health. Now, you are here because there's nothing come to telly, and I'm coming to you live from the old Heale manor. Now just give a quick plug to the, the quiz channel. 

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00:01:25

If you want to do a quiz. If you've missed the quizzes, you can go back and do, do 'em on catch up, and they're over on the old live stream or some quiz channel. But this channel is all about mental health, mental wellbeing, taking the stigma out of mental health. Now, I've got a, an awesome guest on tonight. He has pioneered a revolutionary treatment for the likes of PTSD and stuff like that is gonna tell you all about it. So without too much further ado, let's bring in my guest Dr. 

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00:02:12

Henderson. Good evening. Good evening. Welcome. So Thank 

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00:02:17

You for having me. 

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00:02:18

No, you're most welcome. Now, can you tell us a little bit about what you do, the work that you do and how you go about it, how you've developed what you, you are doing nowadays to help people with their mental wellbeing? So you've got a flaw. 

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00:02:36

Oh, great, thank you. So, you know, I'm a psychiatrist. I'm also a PhD research scientist. And so I come about psychiatry from a brain perspective and I very quickly became frustrated with, alright, well you've got depression here, take this pill, take this SS s r I take this pill for the rest of your life, about a 19% chance that it's gonna make you feel better, but it won't make you feel completely better. It'll just make you feel a little bit better. And, that was very frustrating for me, whether it was PTSD or depression or, you know, worse if you have a traumatic brain injury, there's no treatment at all. 

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00:03:19

It's just like, okay, well, you know, you've got a brain injury, have a nice life. We can't do anything for you. And the work that I, that brought me into thinking about different treatments was because I was, I started doing functional neuroimaging, what are called SPECT scans, S P E C T, which is short for single photon and mission computed tomography So. You can see why it's much easier to say spect. So, and these functional brain scans show how the brain is, you know, some parts are underactive, some parts are not working as well as they should. Some parts are overactive, they're doing too much, or they're, they're mucking up the works by being overactive. 

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00:04:01

And then there are parts of the brain that are cooking along just fine. And whether the, you know, in the case of traumatic brain injury, it's quite obvious, you know, there's a part of the brain that is injured and therefore it's not working very well. But we are also seeing, you know, distinct patterns of dysfunction in things like depression and PTSD and bipolar disorder and A D H D, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, out of that work of diagnosing people and treating people based on what we saw on the functional brain scans, I started to work with people on what can we do for traumatic brain injury? 

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00:04:43

And this really, really led me into this, this approach of activating Neuro neuroplasticity in the brain. And what's neuroplasticity? Well, it, the brain has its own ability to adapt and accommodate and adjust and rebuild things within its within the brain. If you can stimulate that process and turn it on and, and jazz it up, then you can see improvement in things like traumatic brain injury. And so what was brought to my attention about 10, 12 years ago was the work using infrared light and infrared light. 

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00:05:26

Certain wavelengths of infrared light activate the mitochondria and mitochondria, the little organelles inside cells that produce energy. And the light would stimulate the mitochondria, they'd make more energy, but they'd also send signals down to the chromosomes, down to the D n A and turn on growth factors that drove this neuroplasticity that I was talking about. And so all of a sudden, you know, they were showing animal models that, yeah, you can take a, you know, a bunch of mice and you can whack 'em in the head with a, you know, a, an instrument that gives 'em exactly the same traumatic brain injury, treat half the mi mice with infrared light, the other half leave 'em alone. 

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00:06:11

And you'd see that, look, the brain injury is smaller and In fact, there's a whole lot of new synapses being made and dendrites are growing. And In fact, the animal's neurological function, you know, they're able to walk on little beams and things that the animals that got the same brain injury and didn't get treated couldn't do. So both at the level of molecular biology and at the level of the size of the lesion and at the level of the function of the animals, they were seeing that infrared light all by itself, just light was making these animals better. There was some early work looking at low power infrared light to treat people. 

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00:06:55

And the problem with that is that, you know, our skulls, mine especially, is considerably thicker than that of a mouse. So getting infrared light through the scalp and the skull of a human takes more energy. And so what we did is we went into the lab and we sorted that out. We figured out how much light does it take to get through scalp and skull of a human and three centimeters into the brain. And so that was the development of what is called multi watch, infrared light therapy. Now, the light that we use is actually a laser, so don't think Star Trek and things blowing up, this is coherent light. 

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00:07:38

And coherent light is able to penetrate tissue better. And so we're able to actually reach the brain and treat it. And so we have patients now, many, many, many hundreds of patients that we have treated for traumatic brain injury in which they have a spec scan before and after treatment, and you see improvement in the brain function and they experience improvement there. And I can go through all that if we, if we have time, but we also saw that they would get less depressed. And so we started looking at depression as a distinct entity. And we see that In fact, infrared light is a great treatment for depression. 

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00:08:20

It's also a great treatment for PTSD. Probably my favorite patient is a patient who had PTSD from a, a, a naval attack that was 49 years prior to when he was treated. And he had suffered with PTSD all of that time. He came, he got six treatments, it was gone. He no longer had the panic attacks, he no longer hid in the basement. When the jets flew over, he just was happy and living his life and no longer suicidal. It was, it was striking. We've extended this treatment, now we're treating post covid fatigue or Long COVID. 

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00:09:02

And some of the, our patients who have A D H D are, they're like, suddenly, okay, yeah, my depression's better doc, but I don't have a D H D anymore. I don't need to take my stimulants anymore. So it's really quite remarkable and it's, some people are identifying this as the fifth branch of medicine and I think this is where the revolution sort of is starting. So I'll stop there. 

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00:09:28

Wow, that sounds amazing. And, and, and this is already rolling out how, yeah, I mean, where's, where's it rolling out to? Is it, I mean, is it going countrywide? Is it going worldwide? Where can 

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00:09:45

People get this worldwide treatment? Yeah, so right now, I, I'm based in Denver. Our clinic is in Denver and we're use, you know, this is where you can get that multi watt treatment. There are people who are selling these low power infrared light devices that you can literally buy for a couple thousand US dollars and put in your home. The problem is, doesn't get through the scalp and skull. It's doing what's called indirect photobiomodulation or indirect infrared light treatment. So, you know, in terms of what's available worldwide at this point is this indirect low power treatment. 

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00:10:30

But our goal, my goal as a, as a clinician who wants to help people is to get our multi watt infrared light treatment out worldwide. We had to start with, you know, the United States And, you know, so far there's just the one clinic. 

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00:10:48

Wow. So, and is this, this being recognized throughout the industry as, as a a, a, a bonafide treatment that that will progress and more and more clinics will take it up and start using it? 

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00:11:08

That's a great question. And it, it's, it's the, as a scientist, I mean, I, I want to have those double blind placebo controlled clinical trials saying yes indeed, you know, we took 50 people and 25 got treated in 25, got, you know, a sham. They, you know, we didn't turn the laser on and show that there's a difference. And, you know, those kinds of studies for like 60 people, that's about $2 billion and And, you know, at this point, there's not the investment for those kinds of large scale studies. Now, there've been some small scale studies done out of Harvard, for example, my colleague Paula Cassano. 

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00:11:51

And he has shown using a lower power infrared light that yeah, you know, depression gets a little bit better. It was clinically significant in the terms of the fact that, you know, it, it met statistical criteria, but it wasn't like a huge aha experience for a lot of these patients. And that's the difference again, about power. So right now in the field, there's a, there's sort of this schism of people who are working with this low power stuff, and then those of us who are working with multi water, high power infrared light therapy directly reaching the brain. So, you know, we have grand rounds at Harvard and there are many clinicians publishing in the field of infrared photobiomodulation, and the field is progressing and there are a number of patents. 

2  

00:12:41

I have two patents and two more pending And, you know, it's, it's an evolving field. So right now, you know, bonafide, what does bonafide mean? Bonafide could mean okay, it, it's accepted by the government and in the insurance companies and they're reimbursing for it. And we're not at that point. And it's interesting when you look at it as a comparison, transcranial magnetic stimulation or T M s, which is, you know, f D A approved in the US for depression and is reimbursed by insurance companies, sort of, but you know, what initially led to that being F D A approved was about 200 patients. 

2  

00:13:30

That was all it took. Wow. So, you know, it's an interesting time right now of an evolving of an evolving treatment. 

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00:13:40

Well, there's certainly no lack of patients that are suffering from PTSD that you could get a hold of the, the military have one or two that are, that are available for, for testing on. I'm sure. So for, for PTSD, let's be, I mean, I've seen quite a bit of it. I've got a little bit of it myself, and I've been treated for it. How does it work for somebody that's, that's got complex PTSD that's that's right, right. Properly, properly messed up with stuff that they've seen and, and, and done that in their past has really affected them. 

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00:14:23

How would it, how would it benefit them from going forward and having a treatment? 

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00:14:31

Well, so first understanding what's going on neurophysiologically in PTSD, and we actually studied this and published a PA couple of papers back in 2015, in which we looked at spec scans of people who had T B i traumatic brain injury versus PTSD. Now clinically, they're almost indistinguishable. you know, people with PTSD have sleep problems. So do people with T B I, they have irritability, so do people with T B I, they have mood dysregulation. So do people with T B I, they have difficulty, you know, staying employed and staying engaged and social networks. 

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00:15:12

So of people with T B I, I mean O only the flashbacks really sort of distinguish PTSD from T B I on at a symptom level. But if you look at a brain scan, if you look at a spec scan, I mean, they're diametrically opposed PTSD part, the parts of the brain that, you know, we're focusing on are way overactive in T B i, they're way underactive. I mean, it's, it's night and day. There's no confusion now in terms of what the infrared light does. So PTSD has both this overactive areas of the brain. They're being driven by sort of that repetitive intrusive thinking And, that the kind of the thinking, oh, if only I had done this, if only had done this, if only had done this, if only had done this, you know, my buddies wouldn't be dead. 

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00:16:03

That kind of cyclical and spiraling thinking. But there's also a neurophysiological poison in, in PTSD, not unlike in depression. And there are parts of the brain that gets smaller in PTSD, the hippocampus, for example, gets smaller in PTSD. It also gets smaller in depression. Now, fortunately, that degenerative change is reversible. And so anything that drives neuroplasticity can reverse that PTSD. So this is where, you know, what is fascinating about ketamine, which is a rev, you know, a kind of a revolutionary treatment for depression and now being recognized for PTSD, is that ketamine also drives that neuroplasticity. 

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00:16:56

But in the case of the infrared light, what we're seeing is by, by turning on that neuroplasticity, we start to help patients to undo the neurophysiological damage in their brain, and therefore their brain functions better. And therapy sticks. Because if your brain is damaged, you can't expect therapy to stick. Make sense does bite. So, you know, in our, our patients, and we've treated a, a number of veterans and a number of first responders who have PTSD and you know, they're, they see dramatic improvement. 

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00:17:37

you know, literally, I can't tell you how many wives have said to me, you saved his life. 

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00:17:45

So how long does the treatment take? So, so somebody comes in to you with chronic PTSD and, and they start a treatment. How, how long, how many sessions do they need? How long does it take to before you start seeing some positive changes? 

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00:18:05

Yeah, yeah, great question. So again, everyone's an individual, so it's not precise. you know, I mentioned that veteran who he, he had 49 years of, of horrible PTSD and he got better in six treatments. Now he had a car accident and he came back and, and got two more treatments. But that was it, you know, eight treatments. And then we have folks, you know, where 30 is a more realistic number, And, you know, then we have patients who, I have one first responder and he came and got 20 treatments, and then about every two months he comes back and gets a treatment. 

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00:18:45

And what drives that for him? What, how he makes that decision, okay, it's time to come back in, are the headaches? 

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00:18:54

Hmm. 

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00:18:55

So again, it varies from person to person. The treatments themselves take about 30 minutes, you know, and so, so if someone was like, you know, and we have lots of people who do this, they fly into Denver, they, you know, get six, eight treatments. They go back to home to Florida, New York or wherever. And then, you know, after a month they come back and get another six, eight treatments. And what's interesting is that during the time in between they get better because it's not just neuroplasticity doesn't happen, just when the light is shining on your head, it continues. you know, we're turning on a process that continues to unfold over the weeks subsequently. 

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00:19:40

Wow. So So it six or eight treatments half an hour ago, is that done sort of over a few days or is it over once a day? Is it once every other day? Once a fortnight? Yeah. What, what's, what's the sort of the regime that you use when you are giving somebody the treatment? 

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00:20:01

Yeah. Typically two to three times a week is what we'll do. You can't make neuroplasticity go a whole lot faster. you know, you can turn it on, but you can't drive it. Yeah. you know, 'cause neurons only grow a millimeter a day. You can't make that go any faster. No. So, you know, we'll, we'll do typically two to three treatments a week. Again, half hour each treatment, the treatments themselves are painless. People describe it as sort of, you know, you're laying down and we're, we're, you know, have a handheld device that we're using on the forehead and, and into the temple region, or if the brain injury is back here, you know, then we're getting back in through the hair. 

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00:20:44

I will say that hair gets in the way of infrared light. And we actually showed that in a study. And, and so, you know, we love it when the guy comes in and they're, they've got the crew 

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00:20:57

Cut, you know, fally challenged the 

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00:20:58

Hair, the hair's outta the way. Those are the best that Absolutely those are the best. The guys Yeah. Who are bald I love that. 'cause like Harry gets in the way. So when you 

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00:21:10

Treat the precise, getting the machine fucking shine. 

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00:21:13

There you go. Yeah. And what people experience is that they find it very relaxing. And some people afterwards are, you know, kind of relaxed and like they've had a massage and some people actually get energized and sometimes it, it varies from day to day. So one of my patients who was also a physician and so keenly kind of observing the process, he said it was interesting, you know, like one day I felt kind of tired afterwards, another day I was energized. And, and he's one of the patients who, like, he came to me after treatment 17. He said, doc, this is the weirdest thing. I don't need my Adderall anymore. And he's gone back and he is in a very busy clinic and he doesn't need a stimulant anymore. 

2  

00:21:57

So his A D H D is gone. 

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00:22:02

So are there any side effects that you've, you've come across so far in the treatment? 

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00:22:09

Yeah, so with the first treatment, sometimes patients will have a headache and, but after that, no And, you know, the, if we're like shooting to, you know, the, the, the worst thing is that we don't get what we're after. For example, one of the areas that is emerging for this treatment is dementia and mild cognitive impairment. And, you know, that's a little tricky to measure, you know, so how do you know if someone's memory's better? you know, they're not asking the same question over and over again. There are some memory tests, but subjectively, you know, patients will show objective improvement on memory, but their subjective experience is that their memory is not improved. 

2  

00:22:57

And that's a tricky wicket because you know, I can show them the data, but their experience is, Hey, this didn't make me better. So that's, I would say is not necessarily a side effect, but it's like when people don't get what they're hoping for in that memory function piece. 

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00:23:16

Yeah. I mean lots of people have memory function anyway and it's difficult to really tell whether Whether you can remember something. I mean, even it's a perfectly normal person can struggle it remembering what they did yesterday. But can we recall stuff from years ago like it was yesterday? So, I mean, yeah, I get, I kind of get that. So how would somebody say from, from outside the US contact you and come over for the treatment and and what would it cost them? 

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00:23:55

Yeah, that's a great question. So certainly our website, you know, has a link so that you can get to us directly. And that's Neuro Luminance dot com. Neuro, N E U R o, Luminance, L U M I N A N C e.com. Yeah, 

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00:24:14

I'll put all that in the description. 

2  

00:24:17

Okay, great. thank you so much. I appreciate that And. That's also got a, a little page that has my book on it as well and the, as far as, you know, coming over and getting treated and, and, and we've had patients who've, who've come from all over the US and, and several other countries as well down from Canada for example, et cetera. And we will help with sort of, you know, making sure you get into an Airbnb that's like, you know, you know, safe. And then, you know, the, the treatments themselves, you know, if you kind of plan for 20 treatments, the treatments themselves are $300 a piece us. 

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00:25:03

And so, you know, 20 treatments, that's 6,000 us. We do some testing. So if, if you wanna get a spec scan, that's sort of a separate deal. you know, we don't have a scanner in our office. We have people go to the local hospital yet. Yeah. My colleagues and I have actually discussed that. And, you know, I, I'm very active in the brain imaging community, but what we do in addition to the spec scan is A Q E E G. They're cheap. They, they don't have any dangerous, you know, there's no radiation with A Q E E G. 

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00:25:46

And, and we can do them multiple times. So we'll do a baseline Q E G, we also do balance testing 'cause everybody with a traumatic brain injury has balance problems. We do a pupil reflex test, which is a great sort of signal of how the unconscious brain is functioning the brainstem and, and the parts of the brain that we don't voluntarily control. We do a bunch of cognitive tests and paper and pencil tests. And then, you know, after 10 treatments, we repeat those tests and then we say, okay, look at, you know, here's the progress. And then after 10 more treatments, we repeat them again and say, okay, here's the progress. And so that's how we really figure out, you know, do you need 20, do you need 30? 

2  

00:26:30

How many treatments do you need, you know, based on that testing. But you use objective measures, 

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00:26:38

Brilliant So, you, you own to, to helping anybody and say $300 a, a session plus, I mean, for how many sessions you have. It, it could work quite well. And, and would there be any sort of veterans discount? Say, which would you 

2  

00:27:01

Yeah, it's absolutely, I, I'm so glad you brought that up. Veterans are really important to us at neural Luminance and the Neural Laser Foundation. And the Neural Laser Foundation is a nonprofit that does research and then subsidizes the treatment of veterans and first responders. So we can't a hundred percent subsidize, but we can subsidize part of the treatment usually around 50% And, you know, so we've had a bunch of veterans come through through with that program. So we've been able to help them, you know, shave the cost of that for them, 

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00:27:41

Because I guess veterans and first responders, they're in the higher bracket of, of getting complex PTSD. They, they're the guys that that, that are recognizes suffering it more than your average Joe on the street. 

2  

00:28:02

Yeah. The, the the guys and gals that we've treated who are first responders and veterans, you know, probably one of my favorite is, is a police officer from Colorado Springs. And she had horrible PTSD as well as a concussion related to sort of one or two incidences in her career as an officer, as a police officer. And, you know, I'm talking to her about the treatment and I say, you know, hair sort of gets in the way, you know, so maybe we can trim your hair on the sides a little bit so I can get to your temporal lobes. She shows up for her first treatment, Schine O'Connor. She just shaved it all up and, and she said, why not? 

2  

00:28:45

Hair will grow back. I I want my brain back. So. yeah, absolutely. I, love that. 

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00:28:51

That's a great story. So anybody that's coming over for some treatment, you'd suggest having a, a head shave? 

2  

00:28:59

Well, again, I mean, hair gets in the way. I'll just leave it with that. Yeah, we work around it, but hair gets in 

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00:29:07

The, in the way. So your book then, tell us a little bit about your book and, and is it written for the layman or is it absolutely written for the, the scientist? 

2  

00:29:17

So Brighter, Days Ahead is the name of the book. You can see it back here. Well, okay. That side there, it's over there. And Brighter Days Ahead is, is really written for the lay person. And it, it was sort of, i, I kept finding myself saying the same thing to patients and prospective patients and folks I was talking to over and over again. And, and so during the pandemic, you know, I just, I had lots of time on my hand. I, I sat down and just started writing it all out. And, and what happened was that I couldn't help myself. I had to go into the science. 

2  

00:29:58

And so the book ended up sort of being layperson and then intense science, layperson discussion, intense science. And so what I did is I took all that intense science and I put it at the back of the book. And so there, what I, I call them deep dives. And so if you wanna get into the molecular biology of depression or you wanna get into what M r I scans show of that hippocampus getting smaller in depression, you can see all that. It's in the deep dives. If you get curious and you wanna learn about, you know, how science works, I talk about how science really works in the deep dives. 

2  

00:30:38

And so the book is really written for the layperson, and there's lots of examples of, of patient stories of how they responded. And what I do is I get at the, the fact that depression is not about not enough serotonin. you know, we've been told, oh, it's a chemical imbalance in the brain and you don't have enough serotonin, so let's put you on an S S R I, which increases serotonin levels. Well, the reality is that Prozac fluoxetine increases serotonin in about two hours. So why don't you feel less depressed in two hours? 

2  

00:31:19

Because it's not about serotonin levels. I mean, fluoxetine is used to treat P M D D, pre menstrual dysphoric disorder. We know it as p m s. And, and you don't take it all month long, five days before your menstrual period, you take start taking fluoxetine and it pumps up your serotonin levels so that when the progesterone drops and the serotonin drops behind it, you prevent that from happening and you sail through that rough spot, hormonal rough spot without all the anxiety and cut brain fog and, and moodiness that can occur. 

2  

00:31:59

So it's not about, depression is not about insufficient serotonin. And that's been proven now over and over again in big research studies published in top, you know, Lancet just published it last year, a big meta-analysis showing serotonin is not related, it doesn't correlate with depression. So what the book talks about is what is really going on, and it's this degenerative change that happens in the brain So, you look at the neurons of a depressed rat and the, the dendrites, the, that little tree-like thing that neurons have that, you know, looks like a big massive oak tree. 

2  

00:32:41

Well, in a depressed animal, they look like, you know, prude rose bushes in the winter and then after treatment, you know, they arbor rise and branch and make connections and make new circuits. All that stuff gets restored. And I also talk about the fact that, you know, psych, you know, I'm a psychiatrist, but I gotta tell you, I think psychiatry is just a whole lot of malarkey. There is so much gobbledygook now in psychiatry and a lot of it in, at least in the US it's driven by the insurance companies. Oh, well you had to have a diagnosis code and you had to have this procedure code and you can only see the patient for 15 minutes because that's all we're gonna pay for. 

2  

00:33:24

Yeah, that's nonsense. So what happens is that everybody who is sad, or everybody who's or fatigued all the time gets the label of depression and we put them on Prozac or another S S R I and we hope they get better and they don't. And, and we see them once a month and we charge them money and we give them more pills and it goes on and on and on. And the people live a miserable life. And that's nuts. So part of what's going on in, in, in, in the book is that I really talk about that issue and I talk about that ketamine, which is this very powerful anesthetic that also drives that neuroplasticity I was talking about. 

2  

00:34:14

Ketamine works in my hands in my clinic for 72% of the people. So it's a 72% response rate, not a 19% response rate that you have with Prozac. And, but you know, that 30%, that 28% of people who don't get better drive me crazy. I wanna under, I, I wanna solve the puzzle, I wanna know what's going on. So, you know, I found that many of them, you know, the secrets in the genetics. And so if I understand there's genetics, then I can find the right medicine. And so, you know, I'm putting people on on things like lithium and oh, lithium, oh my gosh, that's horrifying. 

2  

00:34:57

Oh, lithium, that's like, oh, that's a bad drug because you know, it's got such a bad rep. Right? But low doses of lithium, I mean, I have people who have their lithium levels are undetectable. Mm. But their depression is gone because it's, it works on a pathway that they have and it works much better. And the pathway is that GSK three pathway has nothing to do with serotonin or the, or the patients have, you know, the people who don't respond who have depression, that doesn't get better. They have chronic fatigue syndrome. And what is chronic fatigue syndrome? Well, it's actually a viral infection. And so by under, by treating them with an antiviral, their depression goes away. 

2  

00:35:42

And rather than treating 'em with an antidepressant and In fact, I, I'm actually, I treat patients worldwide with chronic fatigue syndrome. And that's my next book. It will be about chronic fatigue syndrome. The the last thing, of course is traumatic brain injury. And I can't tell you how I, I, I ask every patient at least twice if they've ever had a head bunk, if they've ever had a concussion, if they've ever gotten their bell rung. You play rugby, you've gotten your bell rung a few times, there's no way around it. And the, and w our, the research shows that it just takes one head bunk, And, you know, American football players, they have thousands of these head bunks. 

2  

00:36:28

So, yeah. 

0  

00:36:29

They're protected with an ailment, aren't they? Well, rugby, I'm protected by my hair. 

2  

00:36:36

There you go. That's right. That's, and again, you know, it's good for blocking infrared light, but not so good for blocking an elbow. 

0  

00:36:43

Yeah. 

2  

00:36:46

So by treating traumatic brain injury, again using this multi wide infrared light, I have patients who, you know, have a lifetime of depression and it goes away because we actually treated what was wrong with them, not the label that we'd given them. 

0  

00:37:06

I say, I think for far too long, the, the medical possession, I can't even say the word now, profession very good. I, I've, I've followed the same path all the time. They, they, because the book says this, that they, they've kept on going instead of trying to fix something that's broken, they just keep doing the same thing again. Bit like politicians as well. They, they carry on doing the same thing. What is so So, it, it is changing that attitude and the behavior of the clinicians to, to look at different ways of treating and, and to look at an individual rather than a whole raft of different people. 

0  

00:37:58

I guess that's correct. That's the way forward. Like, like everybody's an individual and like you were saying, some people respond to some drugs, some don't, some respond to different things for different conditions, but it's identifying those people and what would work for them. And I'm sure you'll get there eventually. 

2  

00:38:23

That's the hope that, you know, we can get to the point where we have individualized medicine that really takes the entire, you know, individual into account. you know, psychiatry is, you know, my colleague Daniel Layman says this many times. He says, you know, psychiatry is the only field that doesn't look at the organ. They're treating psychiatrists don't do brain scans generally. I mean, but why would you not? you know, the argument in, in ivory tower psychiatry is well, brain scans, you know, don't really show you anything and the brain scans don't match up to the diagnoses because like someone who has depression, they, they have different looking brain scans. 

2  

00:39:11

Well, because depression is not one thing. Mm. And that's the problem in psychiatry for, let's take depression, let's stick with that example. So if you're, if you are depressed, you could have increased sleep or decreased sleep. You could have increased appetite, you could have decreased appetite, you could have increased activity, or you could be just laying on the couch like a slug and you'd still have the same diagnosis. Yeah. How does that make any sense? 

0  

00:39:42

I, I guess this is, this is, this is groundbreaking stuff. This, this, I I think for your particular industry of psychiatry is, is really groundbreaking for, for psychiatrists to understand what's inside the knockin. First they need to look inside it. And without taking it off, I guess taking the top off and looking at it, but the scan that tells you a, a, a raft of different things. And, and, and somebody like you were saying earlier, somebody's got PTSD is different from somebody that's had a brain trauma. 

2  

00:40:22

Exactly. 

0  

00:40:22

But the symptoms are similar. 

2  

00:40:25

Very. 

0  

00:40:27

So, so why wouldn't psychiatrists want to do brain scans to see that and make an informed decision then I guess of, and then they can work out what treatment would be. 

2  

00:40:44

Sounds logical, doesn't it? I mean it does. The average person, it's like, wow, why would you not do that? 

0  

00:40:52

Well, I suppose, 'cause it's, at the end of the day, I suppose all these things are driven by money. It's, it's, it's, if it's a money spinner, then it will catch on. But it's, it, if, if you can, if you can make a lot of money from doing the bare minimum, why would you delve in deeper to make it difficult on yourself to make the same money? 

3  

00:41:22

Yeah. 

0  

00:41:22

Yeah. I think that's, that, that might have something to do with it. That's been a skeptic. 

2  

00:41:31

Well, I'll, you know, I'll tell you, we mentioned T M s early transcranial magnetic stimulation earlier. I don't have a T m S machine in my clinic. Why not? Because when t m S came out and they started doing studies and we got beyond the, you know, the few hundred patients they used to get f d a approval. The studies didn't bear up, the VA's done several studies where, you know, basically t m s was no better than placebo, you know, so I'm not impressed by t m s, but you know, they're, they charge like $1,100 per treatment and you had to get 40, oh supposedly insurance covers that. 

2  

00:42:12

But you know, there's a copay which is like, you know, 20, 30%. Yeah. So all of a sudden it gets very expensive, very fast. And And, you know, I'm just, I'm not impressed that it's actually helping. Yeah. And, you know, it's, sorry. Oh, 

0  

00:42:31

That sounds like fun. Firetruck, firetruck. Oh no, you haven't got fire starting. 

2  

00:42:39

Not yet. But for 20 years I was in an office that was one block from a fire station and so I finally moved to a bigger building and I'm a block and a half from a fire station 

0  

00:42:51

And you're still getting whizzing past. 

2  

00:42:54

There you go. 

0  

00:42:56

Well, Dr. Henderson, thank you. This has been amazing. Really iteming and I shall certainly be plugging what you do. 

2  

00:43:08

I appreciate it. thank you so much. 

0  

00:43:11

No, thank you. So there you go. A treatment that's working for depression, for PTSD, for brain trauma, for all manner stuff that's going inside the old noggin. So please the dis you'll find all the, the details of Dr. Henderson down in the, in the description once I've put this up. And let me know what you think. Pop some comments in the chat. So there you have it. 

0  

00:43:51

thank you for, for joining me this evening. So until next time, TT F n Tatar. For now, welcome to the Tim Hill podcast, Ordinary peoples extraordinary stories and Everyday, Conversations, Regarding, Mental Health, and live awesome quizzes on a Tuesday. If you'd like to watch these episodes, rather than listen, if you go over to YouTube and type in Tim Hill nine or Ordinary People's Extraordinary Stories, or Everyday Conversations, Regarding Mental Health or Live or some quiz, you'll find it on YouTube and you can watch and see who I've been talking to. 

0  

00:44:46

You can also take part in the quizzes after the event and put your scores in the chat box to see who else has done well. You'll also find the links in the description below. thank you for your time.