Real Neurofeedback Success Stories In Kids And Young Adults

A kid is “obsessive” and keeps getting stomach aches, so the default label becomes anxiety or OCD. But what happens when the real driver is a seizure pattern in the insula, and the medication plan is accidentally pushing the brain in the wrong direction? That’s where this conversation gets practical fast.

We’re joined by Cory Williams, Director of Neurodiagnostics and Neurofeedback at Nashville Child & Family Wellness Center, to share real-world case stories from the intersection of child psychiatry, medication management, EEG brain mapping, neurofeedback, and neuromodulation. We talk through how reading an EEG can change the entire treatment strategy, including when it’s critical to rule out rare but serious causes like a brain tumor. We also dig into the salience network, attention switching, and why symptoms that look “behavioral” can be rooted in unstable brain regulation.

From there, we tackle a pattern families often find confusing: as neurotherapy works, medication needs can drop. Cory explains how improved brain efficiency can make a once-helpful stimulant dose feel like too much, triggering side effects like anxiety or insomnia, and why smart tapering can be the right move. You’ll also hear a powerful college turnaround story, plus a second grader’s reading leap using phase-amplitude coupling to strengthen brain connectivity in networks tied to recognition and memory.

If you care about brain health, ADHD, anxiety, sleep, learning differences like dyslexia, or safe options for kids, this one will give you both hope and a clearer framework for next steps. Subscribe, share this with someone who feels stuck, and leave a review to help more families find brain-based support.

To learn more about Nashville Child & Family Wellness Center, visit
https://nashvillefamilywellness.com/

To learn more about Transformative Neurotherapy visit:
https://www.TransformativeNeurotherapy.org
Transformative Neurotherapy
570 Lincoln Ave. 
Bellevue, PA 15202 
412-204-7397  

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Transformative Neurotherapy Podcast with your host, Dr. Heather Putney, founder and executive director of Transformative Neurotherapy. This is the place where healing happens faster. Because let's face it, your brain doesn't come with an owner's man. Until now. Here we take a holistic approach to brain health, bringing together science, mind-body harmony, and the tools you need to optimize your well-being. Whether you're a high-performer, executive athlete, longevity hacker, or just somewhat tired of your brain working against you. Dr. Button is here to help you unlock your full potential. From brain fog to chronic stress, we're covering it all. So you can finally experience brain health, mind harmony, and total well-being. Ready to get unstuck? Let's get started.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

When a child's brain begins to regulate more effectively, the ripple effects can transform their entire world and their families. Welcome everyone. I'm Dr. Heather Putney, founder and executive director of transformative neurotherapy, back in the studio with today's guest, Corey Williams, Director of Neurodiagnostics and Neurofeedback at Nashville Child and Family Wellness Center. Corey, we're so excited to have you here today to share some more of your wonderful knowledge and some real life experiences with bridging child psychiatry, with medications, with neurotherapy, neuromodulation. Like I said, that's such a unique opportunity to kind of work in that, you know, triangulation of that field. And so we're just so excited to hear from your real life experience and wisdom. So teach us today. We're at your feet.

Obsessions That Were Really Seizures

MRI Decisions And Insurance Pushback

SPEAKER_02 1:45

Wow, thank you. Um my goodness, that that's so very kind of you. Thank you. Uh yeah, so you know, I I think one of the things that we had wanted to touch on was uh how does this manifest in the real world, right? What what what does it look like when this program is successful? What does that mean for folks? And so I I've I was kind of thinking back through clients I've seen over the years, and I've got a couple of stories that I would like to share if that's okay. And and I sorry, I use couple to mean several. So I think probably three, but I could I could pull more if we need. Um, so the first one that I can think of, right, is we've got this little girl who's um I think she's eight years old when she first comes in the door. And uh her sort of primary concern or presenting concern is that she is super obsessive. She has a really hard time letting go of things. And it's not the obsessive kind of like OCD, you know, like behavior-based, like cleaning stuff. It's much more kind of mental ruminative uh stuff. She she's thinking about the same thing over and over and over and over and really can't let it go. So um the psychiatrist uh did what she's trained to do, right? She put her on an SSRI, which is for anxiety and OCD, didn't work. And then she augmented the SSRI with uh an antipsychotic, which is apilify, didn't work. So then they get referred to me. Um, you know, hey, we've tried these things, it's not working. Uh, and she's, you know, she's at the point of being kicked out of school, and she's gonna get kicked out of school because uh her cousin goes to the same school and she's obsessed over her cousin, and she's like leaving class to go talk to her cousin, and she's following her cousin around on the playground and just you know, really obsessive thinking. So we do the EEG, and what we find is that um her brain is highly, highly unstable. She's having um what are likely to be seizures, although not outward. The seizures are occurring in the insula. And when you get seizures in the insula, these used to be back in the day, these used to be called abdominal seizures. So how it affects her, she says, my stomach hurts really bad. Well, most doctors don't think of that as a seizure, right? Um, and so everybody just kind of says, oh, she gets stomach aches because it's school avoidance. So she's saying, I'm having stomach aches and she's really obsessively thinking. Well, the insula is in charge of the stomach and the autonomic nervous system, but also in charge of the salience network, which helps us to switch our attention between things, right? It helps us to ignore some things and pay attention to others. So her left insula is having these massive discharges that look like seizures, which are causing stomach aches and making it really difficult for her to switch tasks. So, what are we gonna do for that, right? Well, antipsychotics actually make seizure disorders worse. So, right away we're gonna take her off the abilify. Then we're gonna put her on lamictal, which is an anti-seizure medication, but also classifies as um mood stabilizer. Um, so she gets put on lamictal, and then we start doing some neuromodulation, uh, trying to increase SMR, which I'm sure Dr. Pundi, you know from Barry Sturman's work, is like kind of died in the wool, proven true for anti-seizure or seizure prevention. Um, as that part of her brain starts to become better regulated, her stomach aches go away, she's in class more frequently, she's less obsessive about her cousin, and ultimately she doesn't get kicked out of school. Now, that's that's great, right? We're like stoked, so happy about those outcomes. But here's the like here's like kind of a bigger sort of unnoticed piece to this. When you have seizures in your insula, it happens for one of two reasons. One is you have a seizure disorder, and that's what that's what you have. That's what it is. Okay. Reason number two is you have a brain tumor. So when we see seizures in the insula, uh we we need to investigate that more, right? Like and thankfully, you know, knock on wood, this young girl, she doesn't have a brain tumor, and we are thrilled about that. We love that. But if she did, then what that means is we've been trying to medicate her brain tumor with antidepressant medication. And like that's just ludicrous to think of, right? So, one, we get to kind of take this off the table. Hey, we looked at the brain and it's not a tumor. Well, that's great. That's just a relief right there, right? And then two, once we get the treatment sort of dialed into what's going on, we see these huge behavioral improvements. So, so that's a case where the medication piece of it really had to change based on what we saw in the brain. Um, now I've got a couple others.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

And um Can I just actually ask a question for you know anybody listening that maybe isn't as aware of these things as I am? So um when you, like I said, see it, it seems like this seizure disorder in the insula, and you know, that you've got to rule in or rule out um, you know, possible tumor here. Like, is this something that then you send this on to neurology to kind of rule in or rule out, or is that something that you won't you yourself are able to tell?

SPEAKER_02 7:29

So in this particular case, uh we sent, we ordered the MRI for her. Um, but yeah, in I think in most cases, we would say, hey, listen, like you need to see a neurologist for this. I I think for us, it was a matter of there's really two outcomes here. It's either seizures or tumor. And if it's tumor, we need to know right away. So we didn't want to go through the like, you know, the phone call game where, hey, we've got a referral. Oh, hey, we can get you in in eight months, and then the neurologist sees her, and then they order an EEG, and then they read the EEG, and then they refer for imagery. It was like, you know, a year and a half, and if it is a brain tumor, we don't want to wait that long. So we just order the MRI ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

But um, yeah, and most people say like that's a unique experience for for you guys because you do have doctors in house that can then can do that. And that's one of the things that makes that combination really efficient and great for for outcomes. But for people like myself that don't have psychiatrists or doctors on board, when you see these types of things, then it's an automatic referral. We loop in neurologists to try to kind of rule in or rule out the end do these next steps as then we keep going. But like I said, one thing I love about your practice uh is that efficiency by having that you know ability to kind of like get to the get to the answers faster without having to then go to another referral process to kind of get the answers down the road. So I just wanted to kind of uh highlight that because it's super important.

When Neurotherapy Changes Medication Needs

College Turnaround With Fewer Meds

SPEAKER_02 9:01

Yeah, and and um, you know, there's an interesting sort of footnote to this story. We looked at the the EEG and then we recommended an MRI because that's what we should have done. Um the family ended up having a bit of an argument. The insurance company refused, at least at first, to pay for the MRI. Uh, and the reason they gave was the psychiatrist shouldn't have ordered the EEG in the first place, which is ludicrous. But what that what the insurance company wanted us to do was to refer to neurology and then refer to, you know, have neurology refer to imaging. Um, and they they kind of were mad at us for skipping that step. But the crazy part about that is if you're board certified in psychiatry, you are also board certified in neurology, right? It's the same board, it's the same certification. So what why would the psychiatrist not be able to order this test? It's it's absolutely absurd. Um, and eventually it got sorted out, but they had the family had to go through uh a bit of a um like process to get insurance to cover it, which was you know super, super annoying. Um uh I could we could do a whole like two-hour talk on on the healthcare system in this country. I uh I'll spare you all the the nasty gritty details, but um, yeah, uh thankfully they eventually did get it covered. We were able to rule out the tumor, uh, and she she's doing much better now, which is which is great, right? Um now the other thing that uh I see a lot of, and I'm I'm sure you've seen this too. Uh when you do neurofeedback, neuromodulation, neurotherapy of some sort, there's usually less of a need for medication than when you first start, right? I'm sure you've seen this too. Um and it's made for some some kind of interesting, especially at the beginning, some interesting conversations. So for for those of you who are unfamiliar with this process, the the way that this usually works is uh if you're suffering from, let's say, ADHD, and the doctor prescribes you a stimulant, and the stimulant that they give you is working, right? Your attention is better, your focus is better, you're feeling sharp, great. And then you start to do neurofeedback or neurotherapy, neuromodulation, it goes by lots of names. As the brain gets healthier and starts working more efficiently on its own, there's less of a need for medication than there was at the beginning. And what will happen is if you don't adjust the medication dosing, the you start to run into side effects you did not previously have. So on the stimulant medication, the most common side effects are loss of appetite, anxiety, skin picking, and insomnia. So frequently we'll see someone who over the first three or four sessions, they say they're feeling great. By around session six or seven, they say, I think my anxiety is going up. And most psychiatrists are trained, if things get worse, either increase the dose or add another medication. But what we're trained to do is decrease the medication. And so that that sometimes at the beginning, when I first started at this job, would create a little bit of friction because I would say, hey, I think we need to lower her dose. And the psychiatrist would say, why? She's getting worse, not better. And it's like, well, no, what we're running into are medication side effects that we didn't see previously. So in all of our EEG reports, we include not just the medication that the client is taking, but all of the commonly reported side effects. And we tell them, hey, you know, if you start to experience any of these things, let me know, because then it's time to start adjusting doses. So I can give you a really good example of this one. Um I was working with a uh young lady who was, I guess, technically not a kid by the time we finished. Uh, she was 18 when we oh, so she wasn't a kid when we started. Well, anyway, young adult. She's 18 when we started. Um, and she was uh 20 by the time we finished, I think. So she's uh just started college when I started to see her. And she was on a stimulant because she was diagnosed with ADHD. She was on an SSRI because she was diagnosed with um depression and anxiety. She was on a sleep medication, um, which I mean it's a sorry, it was trazodone, um, but still a sleep medication. And she was on, uh, what was the other one she was on? Not an antipsychotic. Um, she was on Busebar, which is an anxiolytic of sorts, right? So, so she's on four medications, which is a lot. It's kind of a lot for anyone. Um, and it also means that we're gonna have a really robust side effect profile, potentially, because we've got all these different meds, right? So as we got started, um, her she she was an engineering major, and her parents told her, you probably can't do this job, right? Like you're too anxious, you're you're unfocused, it's just not gonna work. Like you should pick something that's a little less academically rigorous. And her parents made that suggestion because that's what her therapist was telling the whole family. Um, I think you've picked a major that's too hard for you. Uh, I don't think you have enough focus to do this, I think you're too anxious to do this, I think it's a bad choice. Which, you know, that's kind of a kind of a crappy thing to hear from your therapist, but that's an aside. So we start, we you know, we do a brain map like we're supposed to. We start doing, and in this particular case, we were doing some neural feedback. Um, we start targeting different networks within the brain, specifically the salience network, to switch between default mode and central executive. Uh, the first thing that happens is her sleep gets better. She just starts sleeping better. She's she's less uh awake at night, less um ruminative. So as she gets going, the sleep medication drops. And that's an easy one for her to just tell the doctor, I'm sleeping better. And the doctor says, okay, cool, let's just discontinue this. So then we keep going, we're doing more and more sessions, right? And uh her focus starts to get better. And so she tells the doctor, my focus is better. I don't want to take my ADHD medication. And the doctor says, Okay, like keep it as like a PRN, right? Like use it as needed. Maybe if you have to take a test or you have to do a late night study session. Okay. And I'm so proud of this client because she did these things like kind of in the right order. Um, you know, if she had gone down on her, say, anxiety medication first, her anxiety probably would have spiked because she was still on the stimulant. But she went down on the stimulant first. And then she comes back to the doctor and she says, Hey, listen, I'm like 35 sessions in. I feel great. My mood is great. I'm not anxious. I'm really focused in my classes. And the doctor says, Okay, well, let's start to titrate down on the medication. So by the time we are finished, she did 50 sessions. And by the time we're done, she is completely off of all four medications. She's an honor role student. Um, her advisor invited her to do a presentation to like a group of industry people, um, which by the way, she nailed. And then afterwards, she got offered an internship. So, so we went from this major is too hard for you. You should quit. That's what her therapist and her parents told her to graduating with honors and landing an internship in the field, right? I mean, that's that's awesome. But and this is the coolest part of this story, right? This is the part that, like, as a practitioner makes me all teary-eyed. Um, I asked her when we were finished, what do you think is like the biggest thing that has changed for you? And she said, uh, when she first started college, that she knew that she wasn't getting everything she was supposed to get. So she would bring a tape recorder with her and she would record all of the lectures. And then when class ended, she would go home and listen to the lecture again and fill in the gaps in her notes.

unknown 17:35

Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

And then by the end of all of this, uh she was getting everything in the first go round, right? In class, her notes would be complete. So then when she got out of class, she didn't have to go transcribe half the class all over again. And she told me the biggest difference for me is that I have so much more free time now. I feel like I'm actually doing the college experience. I'm going out to lunch, I'm getting coffee with my friends. I I don't worry if I show up to a class hungover, like, which, you know, I we can we can argue about pros and cons there. But it for her, it was transformative because it doubled, tripled her amount of free time. And that to me was like, oh, like, you know, you don't see it, but like she was missing out on that sort of quintessential college experience because she was working so hard to get C's in this degree she wanted so badly. And so by the end of all the neurofeedback that we did, she's getting to experience college in a much more like socially healthy way while also having better grades and doing better in her both her academic coursework and what eventually became her career. So that's another one where it's like not only did we have to come down on the medication, and and now she's by the way, you know, has stayed medication free, but also everything else came along with it. It's just such a such a fun success story, that one.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Well, I love to hear about that one. It's just like the difference in um in the call of the um quality of life and the um life work balance, right? Like because it's not her brain is functioning higher at a higher level, it's so much more efficient that they're able to do things in much less time. And that's that is um also one of the benefits I see over and over again, you know, insert client blank, and then later, like it's just like things just work better, things are just more efficient. They're used to a lot more resistance to get anything quote unquote normal done, you know, compared to other people. And they're just kind of amazed at like, oh wow, this is what life can be like because that used to be my baseline, and now I've got a new baseline, and it's incredible.

Reading Gains Through Brain Connectivity Training

SPEAKER_02 19:49

Yeah. So it it really is. And and so kind of along those lines, right? And this is this next one that I'll tell you about is is really cool to just think about like long-term trajectory. Uh, and this one, this one isn't as medication related, but I saw a um, he was in second grade. Yeah, second grader. Yep, yeah, because he goes to third. So he's a second grader, right? And he comes to me and um he's not reading anywhere close to grade level. Now, he's diagnosed with dyslexia and autism spectrum disorder, and he was bullied at his previous school. So there's a little bit of like kind of trauma PTSD around school, right? So there, so it's a complicated case. There's a lot to work on, there's a lot to do. Um, and we started off by kind of working on some of the trauma pieces and then a little bit of the kind of communication and executive function stuff. Well, we hit winter break, and I was talking with his mom, and she says, you know, we've been doing these letter flashcards, and he knows, I don't know, maybe like 12 letters out of the alphabet. Like he doesn't even know half of them. He doesn't recognize the letters. So of course he's not reading at a grade level. Like it, you know, he doesn't know the alphabet yet. Um, so they have a private reading tutor for him. It's going okay. And over winter break, the mom says, I think all we're gonna do is is neuromodulation. We're we're gonna stop the tutoring. We're gonna, we're gonna take winter break off. You know, we'll pick it back up once school starts again, but I want him to have like a Christmas vacation, you know? So, okay, great. So we started doing um what are called phase amplitude coupling protocols. Um, so I'm sure you're you're kind of slightly familiar with this, right? But but basically the premise here is that you look at the brain in action. So instead of watching the brain while a person just sits in a chair, you watch their brain while they pay attention to something. And you you try to measure within that. Attentional network, what areas are connecting and what areas are not. And when we did his uh his assessment, right, to see you know what's what in your brain is connecting and what isn't, we see that all the areas associated with like shape and object recognition and memory are not connected. Like, so of course he doesn't remember the letters, right? These parts of his brain that do those jobs aren't talking to each other. So when you do phase amplitude coupling training, uh you put one sensor where that area is, and you put another sensor where the other area is, and you train them to talk to each other very specifically. And it's called phase amplitude coupling because you're you're using a theta wave, which is stable over long distance, and then you're joining gamma on top of the theta wave. And so the two are in phase, they go up and down at the same time, even though they're they're kind of different waves. And gamma within the brain acts a little bit like glue, it binds networks together. So we target these two areas that don't talk. We run theta and gamma at the same time between them. After two weeks, his mom comes back to me and she says, Well, he just did another like letter flashcard test. He he got 24 out of 26 correct. I don't know what you did, but this is amazing. By the end of the year, he's reading at grade level and they're no longer talking about holding him back. So when you think about long-term trajectory, right, to have that big a reading deficit. I mean, he's reading uh essentially at a pre-K level, uh, and he's supposed to be reading by like late second grade level, right? That's a full two-year gap in his ability to read. And once you get to third grade, the curriculum shifts. You no longer learn to read, you read to learn. And if you're not a strong reader by third grade, everything becomes so much harder because now you're learning about material, that you're reading the material to learn, you know, facts, history, science, like all that kind of stuff, right? So to make that shift and to and to sort of catch that issue before hitting such a pivotal time in his academic development is huge. I mean, that that is the definition of life changing. Um, and maybe it would have come along with mentoring and and you know, the individual reading coach, maybe, but if those two parts of his brain aren't talking to each other, I gotta think that it's not. If it does come along, it's gonna be a struggle for him. So we get those two parts of his brain turned back online, and now he's on course to look, he's still gonna have autism. I'm not, you know, we cure autism, nothing does that, right? He's still probably gonna have some dyslexic issues in terms of maybe some reversals or or word reversals. But the to be able to close the distance in such a short period of time becomes absolutely transformative for his future trajectory.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

And I'm gonna ask this as a devil's advocate advocate here. Um, so we do this treatment at this intensive level and you see these major shifts. Um, does it regress or what what happens after the fact?

SPEAKER_02 25:25

Yeah, so um I think the easiest way for me to explain this question is I haven't seen him since. So we're probably good, right? Because I saw his after I saw him, I saw his brother and his dad and his grandpa. I haven't seen him since. So I'm guessing things are in a good spot. But but you know, the the the sort of longer answer to your question is I do expect things to regress. I think that uh there, if you if we take three steps forward and then we stop, I expect half a step backwards. But if he's reading at pre-K and we get him up to second grade, and then he takes half a step backward and he's at late first grade, the teacher in the classroom can help with intervention at that point, right? Um, you know, you know, reading is both a brain piece but also a skills piece. And part of the regression there is gonna come from well, he can now, now he can recognize the letter T and the letter H, but he doesn't know they make a different sound when they're together, right? And that's the the reading piece that the skill piece that has to come along. So I expect there's gonna be some small amount of regression, but the the course correction here is the most important piece, right? I mean, if if we're thinking about like an XY axis, he's a flat line down at the bottom, he does neural feedback and suddenly it's an upward arc. And if there is regression, maybe the slope of that upward arc flattens some, but it's still an upward trajectory. And that to me was the the the most important part for this kiddo.

Safety Of Neuromodulation For Kids

SPEAKER_01 26:58

That's really exciting. And I think it um begs a couple of different um questions or comments here in the sense that the um, you know, why it's beneficial people ask, is this okay with kids? You know, or is this safe to do with kids, especially neuromodulation when we're adding things like low, you know, low-level electricity or or you know, the PEMF or the LED lights, you know, and the people are like, oh, is this safe for kids? Can we do this with kids? And you know, what your experience is, I mean, can is this safe with children to do like these types of interventions?

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Oh, uh a hundred percent. Uh absolutely that that thought uh I answer this question all the time because obviously parents are worried, they're nervous, they're concerned, but um, yes, it's absolutely 100% safe, right? And and one of the things that we do in our office, so the sort of like recommended safety standard for this type of intervention, in terms of how strong is the electrical signal, is four milliamps. Now, some companies make equipment that goes stronger. Um, the equipment we use in our office only goes up to two and a half. I start all of our kids at 0.1. So we are starting at like the lowest, lowest, lowest, lowest level. And some kids never get past 0.2, and we still see really good results, and we get really good results because the way that this works, yes, we're using electricity, but the primary driver of the intervention is actually entrainment, right? The brain is copying the frequencies that we show it. And that's why they get healthier and more efficient. That's why things get better because the brain is changing its own electrical patterns. It's not like we are shocking the brain, right? I mean, I would even argue that at 0.1 milliamps, you're not generating enough current to get through the skull into the brain, right? Like it's like physically impossible for that level of electricity to get that deep into the cortex. So, what we're really doing is we are showing the brain a pattern and asking the brain to copy it. And the brain is a copycat. It likes novelty, it likes to copy new things. Um, so yeah, absolutely. It's safe. Um, sometimes the sensors can be a little itchy, and we'd buy uh like a topical um numbing cream from CVS, you know, or or Walgreens or wherever. Like it's like I think it's called anti-itch cream or anti-burn cream. And we put that on, and most kids don't even notice the sensors are on. Uh, and so they come in and and they just hang out for 30 minutes and and their brains get get trained. It's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

That's super exciting. Well, it's really fun um to hear the real life stories. You know, we talk about sometimes these interviews we talk about things in theory, but it's you know, we're humans and we like to be, and I know for me, it's like I want the stories. I want to know like what did this look like and how did this this change this person's life? And no, each person is unique, but just seeing like how it's uh how it can change, like you said, the trajectory of a person's life is massive.

SPEAKER_02 30:02

Yeah. Absolutely. And and you know, you work in in a sort of clinical setting, so do I, right? And one of the reasons that people get into clinical work in the first place is because we want to out people. Um, speaking for you here, I'm assuming most clinicians that I've met have have gotten into this field, into this type of work, because they want to help and they want to see people get better. And so all the theory in the world is great in reading all through the technical manuals and you know, protocol placements and set, right? That's all really cool stuff. I'm a nerd, I love that stuff. But a huge part of this work is seeing how it impacts people on a day-to-day basis. And that for me is is like the the absolute um the best, the best part of the job, right? Is is getting to see people grow and change and get better. And then when you're working with kids, you you don't get to see the final, you know, this the eight-year-old that I worked with, I don't get to see her as an adult, right? I mean, it's very rare that that we get that sort of longitudinal data or tracking of any kind, but knowing that we have course corrected, you know, the tr like you said, the trajectory has changed is is so so cool. It's just uh it's yeah, the best part of the job for sure.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

Yeah. I know in our in our job, um, sometimes the best thing that can happen is for them to fire you, but I call it graduating because they've reached their goals, you know? And then and and so it's like, you know, this is this is actually the goal, it's not to keep you dependent on us, but for us to do the course correction for your brain to kind of figure out what it needs to do and be able to do it on its own without, you know, without having to rely on people or medications or some other things for um, you know, forever. So it's super fun.

SPEAKER_02 31:54

Yeah, the the graduation is is a really fun thing. And um, there have been a few clients like over the years where we've we've actually gone out of our way to get graduation presents for them because you know it's been such like a long and difficult journey. And uh I'll tell you tell you one more. Um the I worked with a client with um a pretty severe eating disorder. And one of she so she's a teenage girl. Um, and one of the things that she really struggled with at the beginning was that she wasn't sleeping. Um and she would get anywhere from like one to three hours of sleep a night. Well, first of all, that's just not enough. Like we everybody knows that's not enough, right? Um, we know it's not we know she's gonna feel worse every day because of that. And um longitudinally, we know the biggest predictor of early onset dementia is poor sleep when you're younger, right? So if you're not sleeping in your teens, 20s, 30s, your likelihood of uh developing dementia is through the roof. So um I that's my concern. She's not sleeping enough. Uh yes, the eating disorder is also a concern, and the sort of you know, locked-in rigidity that we see in those types of cases. So we did a bunch of sessions. Um, she was working with a dietitian and a therapist. The eventually the eating disorder sort of stabilizes, although I I don't know that I can make all the claims to that, right? Like she had a whole team of people supporting that work. At the end, when she she turned 18 and said, like, I'm never coming back. And I was like, okay, that's fine. And at the end, like maybe her last session or second to last session, um, she told me, I'm glad I'm never gonna see you again. And to be honest, I'm kind of angry with you. And I was like, Oh my gosh, like what happened? Like, what's the matter? And she said, you know, when I first started coming here, I could stay up all night and I could get stuff done, I could talk to my friends, and I would only get an hour or two of sleep, but that was fine. And that was my superpower. And now I sleep like seven or eight hours a night, and it's all your fault. I said, you know what? I'll I'll take the hate on this one. That's fine. Um, you you can be mad at me for that, and uh, and I know that you're you're gonna be in such a better place for it, so it's all good. Um yeah. Uh so that that one that she made me laugh pretty hard when she graduated. She's mad about it.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

Well, Corey, thank you so much for your time and for your wisdom and just for these, you know, exciting stories that you got to tell us because I know there's a lot of people out there, either they've got a child that's feeling stuck or they themselves are feeling stuck and maybe a little bit hopeless and they don't really know what to do. So just being able to hear like real people's experiences and how they got unstuck and they got to move forward with these different modalities is really exciting and very hope-filling. So we really appreciate and thank you for the wonderful work that you do for this field and also for your clients.

SPEAKER_02 35:08

Yeah, thanks for having me. Um, it's always fun to share the success stories. You know, it's it's like I said earlier, it's why we get into the field in the first place, right? Um, and yep, for people out there who are looking for hope, you know, this is certainly I I can't tell you the number of clients I have seen over the years who have come in and said, this is our last hope. We've tried everything else, nothing else has worked. And then this ends up being the thing that works. And it's because we're working on what the brain needs, right? We're we're not guessing, we're looking at the brain, we're understanding how it's working currently and how we can improve its function. Um, so yeah, it's it's a it's a super fantastic modality.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Thank you. I completely agree. And I thank you so much for the work you do and for your time today. And um until we see each other again, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 36:03

Take care.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

You've been listening to the Transformative Neurotherapy Podcast with Dr. Heather Putney. Remember, your brain isn't supposed to hold you back, it's supposed to power you forward. So stop letting it crash your party and start letting it do its job. If you're ready to optimize brain health, sharpen your focus, and age like a fine wine, schedule your free consultation today at Transformative Neurotherapy.org. Or call us at 412-204-7397. Because here, healing happens faster. See you next time.