CPTSD vs PTSD: How functional neurology can help

Awareness has increased about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the destructive and far-reaching consequences it can have on a person’s life. However, it’s helpful to distinguish between PTSD and complex PTSD (CPTSD), which the World Health Organization recently formally recognized. CPTSD largely affects victims of childhood abuse.

Official recognition opens the doors for more research and the potential of better treatment for sufferers of CPTSD, many of whom are female survivors of childhood sexual abuse. In fact, more women than men have been identified as suffering from PTSD.

An estimated 7 percent of children are victims of sexual abuse and it is believed to underlie later mental and physical problems, including chronic health conditions, depression, anxiety, addiction, and criminal behaviors.

The difference between PTSD and CPTSD

Although both PTSD and CPTSD are caused by trauma and can have lasting consequences, researchers increasingly see the two disorders as distinct:

PTSD: The result of an acute trauma, such as combat trauma, witnessing a death, being in a natural disaster, an accident, etc.

In PTSD symptoms are related to re-experiencing the trauma and wanting to avoid situations that trigger that. People with PTSD tend to be more hypervigilant and have negative beliefs and feelings.

CPTSD: The result of repetitive and prolonged trauma, such as ongoing physical abuse, sexual abuse, and/or neglect that is often experienced in childhood but can also include domestic violence and abuse, exploitation, etc. in adulthood.

A person with CPTSD will have the symptoms of PTSD along with the following:

• Difficulty regulating emotions and experiencing persistent sadness, suicidal thoughts, and rage.
• Disassociation that pulls a person out of the moment, amnesia about the trauma, or obsessing about or reliving the trauma.
• Feeling different than other humans with persistent helplessness, stigma, shame, or guilt.
• Seeing the perpetrator in a distorted way, either giving them too much power or obsessing about revenge.
• Problems with mistrust, isolation, or searching for a “rescuer” when it comes to personal relationships.
• Despair, hopelessness, and lack of meaning in life.
• Tendency to self-harm or self-medicate.

Treatment for PTSD and CPTSD can be very similar, although CPTSD typically requires in-depth psychotherapy to undo years of damage from negative beliefs and self-perception.

Because PTSD and CPTSD create hypervigilance and emotional dysregulation, this can negatively “wire” the brain over time in a way that reinforces anxiety, depression, addiction, and other brain-based disorders.

In addition to psychological approaches, functional neurology can help you rehabilitate your brain from PTSD and CPTSD by helping calm over active areas of the brain and activate areas that are under firing. The goal is to calm and regulate your fear-focused brain.

In functional neurology we work with the concept of “neuroplasticity,” which means your neurons can create new pathways of communication. This can help you develop new habits, new ways of thinking and feeling, the ability to make better decisions, and to reduce or alleviate addictive tendencies.

Functional neurology also incorporates dietary and lifestyle strategies to support your brain health. For instance, if you are eating one or more foods that are causing inflammation in the brain, this can exacerbate your PTSD and CPTSD. Adopting an anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle can help you in your recovery.

Ask my office how functional neurology can help you in your recovery from PTSD or CPTSD.

Chronic fatigue syndrome is a neurological condition

You may have heard of chronic fatigue syndrome or maybe have it yourself. Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) has long been controversial in conventional medicine, but neurological research has both validated and renamed it: Myalgic encephalopathy (ME). “Myalgic” means pain and “encephalopathy” means inflammation of the brain or spinal cord. In other words, chronic fatigue syndrome is now known to be caused by inflammation of the brain and spinal cord. The illness is often referred to ME/CFS for short.

Other names for myalgic encephalopathy include “post-viral fatigue syndrome” and “chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome.” These names illustrate the illness is real, not imagined, and can be triggered by an inflammatory event, typically a virus.

ME/CFS causes severe and chronic tiredness and affects as many as four million people in the United States.

Many people with chronic fatigue syndrome, a term coined in 1988, prefer you don’t call it that. They believe that name trivializes what is actually a debilitating condition. Many people joke they have “chronic fatigue” when they hear that term, unaware that many sufferers of ME/CFS are largely bedridden and barely able to function.

It doesn’t help that many medical doctors are skeptical the syndrome exists and blame it on patient hysteria. As such, many patients with ME/CFS do not receive a diagnosis or treatment — it’s estimated more than 90 percent of ME/CFS sufferers have not been formally diagnosed.

ME/CFS became established as a legitimate diagnosis in 2014 when the US government contracted the Institute of Medicine to review the scientific literature and define ME/CFS.

The new name is not without controversy, however, as retaining the “CFS” for chronic fatigue syndrome is at odds with what we know scientifically —ME has an identifiable viral trigger while CFS may not. CFS is diagnosed solely by symptoms.

What is ME/CFS?

Four times as many women than men are afflicted with ME/CFS and it usually hits them in their 40s and 50s. It creates the following symptoms:

• Extreme fatigue caused by little or no exertion. This is referred to as “post-exertional malaise.”
• Do not feel rested after sleeping. In fact, poor and unrefreshing sleep only increases fatigue and pain.
• Poor cognition. ME/CFS sufferers often have brain-based issues, including brain fog, poor concentration, poor attention, and memory loss.
• Pain. People with ME/CFS often experience chronic pain, whether it’s in their muscles, joints, throughout the body, or as headaches.
• Gut problems.
• Visual disturbances.
• Chemical sensitivities and food sensitivities.
• Chills and night sweats.
• Depression and irritability.
• Weight changes.

A patient receives an ME/CFS diagnosis when all other possibilities — such as fibromyalgia, thyroid problems, anemia, Lyme disease, lupus, MS, hepatitis, sleep disorders, and depression — have been ruled out.

Functional neurology for ME/CFS

In functional neurology we address underlying brain and health imbalances use brain rehabilitation therapies that can help the brain recover.

Things we investigate include chronic inflammation, infection, neurological dysfunction, gut problems or infections, problems with detoxification and methylation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and poor glutathione activity. Ask my office for more advice.

Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism care includes brain care

When managing Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism, you should not overlook the importance of addressing your brain health and function. Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism can have profound effects on the brain and you may need to support your brain in addition to managing your Hashimoto’s thyroid condition.

Because every cell in the body needs thyroid hormone for proper function, a thyroid hormone deficiency can significantly impact brain health and function. Likewise, the inflammation that accompanies unmanaged Hashimoto’s can inflame and degenerate the brain.

Your thyroid health affects brain inflammation, communication between neurons (plasticity), brain chemicals (neurotransmitters), and general brain health and function.

It is these reasons why many people with unmanaged Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism experience depression, fatigue, brain fog, memory loss, worsened cognition, and other brain-based symptoms.

Thyroid hormones perform vital roles for brain function. One of their most important roles is to dampen brain inflammation through their effect on the brain’s immune cells, called microglia cells. Unlike the body, the brain does not have an off switch for inflammation and it depends in part on sufficient hormone function to keep inflammation in check.

Unchecked inflammation can degenerate, or age, the brain too quickly.

While taking thyroid hormone medication may be necessary, it’s also important to address your autoimmune Hashimoto’s by removing inflammatory triggers, dampening inflammation, and restoring balance to the immune system.

Hashimoto’s is an autoimmune condition that causes 90 percent of hypothyroid cases in the United States; the immune system must be included in care.

It is also important to address autoimmunity to lower the risk of developing autoimmunity in the brain or elsewhere in the nervous system. One autoimmune disease significantly increases the risk of autoimmunity to other tissues in the body, and many people have more than one autoimmune disease.

In fact, it’s not uncommon for people with Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism to also have autoimmune attacks against their cerebellum, an area of the brain that plays a role in movement and coordination.

If you have Hashimoto’s and also have symptoms pertaining to balance, dizziness, or nausea, you may want to be screened for brain autoimmunity.

A worst-case scenario when it comes to Hashimoto’s and brain autoimmunity is Hashimoto’s encephalopathy (HE), also known as autoimmune dementia, HE is caused by the same immune antibodies that destroy thyroid tissue — thyroid peroxidase (TPO) antibodies. In addition to memory loss, symptoms can include tremors, seizures, impaired speech, confusion, partial paralysis, fine motor problems, and poor coordination. However, HE is not common and you should not assume you have it.

This information is important because many doctors tell their patients to wait until their thyroid “burns out” and then remove it surgically. This does nothing to treat an overzealous immune system that is at the root of thyroid dysfunction and poor brain health.

If you have been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism, ask my office about how functional neurology can help you recover and optimize your brain health.

Good brain health depends on using your legs

While math games and crossword puzzles seem like a logical way to boost your brain, but what it may prefer instead is you get up from your chair and go exercise your legs. A recent study showed that exercising the legs, especially with weight-bearing exercises, signals the brain to create new nerve cells. These findings can not only help people boost their brain function but also explain why loss of leg function leads to rapid decline and provide insight for improved therapies.

Considered a groundbreaking study that will alter neurological medicine, the study illustrates how vital load-bearing exercises are to brain function. It can help explain the decline seen in patients who lose leg function to multiple sclerosis, motor neuron disease, spinal muscular atrophy, and other diseases of the nervous system.

The mechanism also affects those who are bed ridden, astronauts in space who do not have gravity to work against when using their legs, and those who sit all day — “sitting disease” raises the risk of many common diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity.

The researchers found that not using your legs alters your body chemistry by lowering the amount of oxygen in the body and altering the expression of genes involved in cellular growth and regeneration. These alterations dramatically decrease the numbers of neural stem cells and thus the ability to produce new neurons.

Lack of leg function also hinders the function and development of specialized cells that insulate the nerves.

To prevent this, you simply need to use your legs regularly, especially in weight bearing activities. Regularly exercising your legs will literally grow new nerve cells.

Without this, not only will brain function suffer, but your ability to handle the stressors and challenges of daily life will diminish. This study adds to our knowledge base about why regular exercise helps combat stress, anxiety, and depression.

It also demonstrates that no matter how smart you are or how much you engage your brain intellectually or artistically, your brain’s health and function depends on regular exercise that incorporates the large leg muscles. A sedentary lifestyle is as damaging and possibly even worse than smoking.

The study involved restricting the hind legs of mice for 28 days. The mice went about their normal eating and grooming activities and did not appear stressed. At the end of the study researchers examined the area of the brain in the mice responsible for maintaining nerve cell health and producing new nerve cells in mammals.

They found the mice who had their hind legs restricted showed 70 percent less stem cell activity compared to the control group of mice who had full use of their hind legs. The study mice also did not have full support or development of the cells that insulate neurons.

Although research abounds about which forms of exercise are superior, just going for regular walks can significantly boost your brain health and function if you are typically sedentary. You can also try squats, leg lifts, lunges, and other simple exercises that make your legs work against gravity.

Additionally, although any form of exercise is great for the brain, raising your heart rate through aerobic exercise and high-intensity interval training boosts metabolism, hormones, and chemicals in a way that boost brain function and improve and preserve brain health.

However, it is vitally important you not overdo your exercise and cause yourself stress and inflammation. Both of these will work against you by sabotaging function in the hippocampus and causing it to degenerate more quickly. This is important because the hippocampus is the area of learning and memory and the first area of the brain to degenerate in Alzheimer’s and dementia.

Ask my office about how to improve your brain health and function.

Autism prevention begins before you conceive

If you are planning to conceive a child, it’s worth paying attention to the factors that contribute to the autism spectrum disorders — science shows many of them begin preconception. Although autism prevention isn’t a guarantee, you can improve your future child’s chances of optimal neurological function by shoring up your own health prior to conception.

Studies show many cases of autism are the result of inflammatory mechanisms that begin in the womb and are heavily influenced by the mother’s immune health. Poor maternal immune status can also raise the risk of asthma, allergies, and other immune disorders in their children. In fact, many children with autism also present with other immune disorders.

For instance, a clearer connection exists between infections during pregnancy and autism risk. A review of 20 years of research showed that hospitalization for a viral infection such as flu during the first trimester tripled the odds for autism, while a bacterial infection, including urinary tract infections, during the second trimester increased the risk by 40 percent. This research shows us maternal immunity clearly affects the developing brain of the fetus.

It isn’t the virus or bacteria that cause autism, but the mother’s inflammatory response to the infection. This is a big clue that maternal inflammation plays a role in raising the risk neurological and immune issues such as autism in the child.

A mother’s autoimmune status increases the risk of autism in her children

The good news about viral and bacterial infections is they have declined during the last 60 years. However, rates of autoimmune diseases and chronic inflammatory health disorders have been skyrocketing, affecting at least about 20 percent of the population. Autoimmune disease alone dwarfs cancer and heart disease combined.

This means many mothers are conceiving and carrying the fetus while in a chronic state of inflammation (older fathers and premature births also increase autism risk). Research shows this chronic maternal inflammation affects the immune and neurological health of their children while in utero. For mothers with autoimmunity they are not managing through functional neurology and functional medicine protocols, this means their unborn child is at a higher risk of developing autism.

In fact, one study of 700,000 births found that maternal rheumatoid arthritis, celiac disease, or Type 1 diabetes more than doubled the risk of autism in the child.

Another study showed a significant correlation between maternal autoimmune Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism and an increased risk of autism in her children.

Why does autoimmunity raise the risk of autism in the child? With autoimmunity, the immune system is in a hyper zealous and chronically inflamed state. It also produces immune cells called antibodies to tag tissues in the body to target them for attack and destruction.

Studies have found that some mothers create antibodies to the brain tissue of their fetus. This means the child is born with an immune system that is attacking and destroying their developing brain. This is what causes neurological and immune issues that present as autism spectrum disorders.

Research shows mothers of children with autism are five times more likely to have antibodies to their children’s brain in their blood.

Other maternal risk factors for autism in her child include allergies, insulin resistance, obesity, and chronic low-grade inflammation.

Modern diet and lifestyle behind inflammation and autoimmunity

So why are so many moms so inflamed these days? We have the familiar standbys of a modern industrialized society to thank: Unstable blood sugar from excess consumption of sugars and processed carbohydrates (breads, pasta, white rice, pastries, etc.); processed foods; chronic stress; overly sedentary lifestyle; and living in a sea of environmental toxins in our homes, body products, air, food (even organic), and water.

Thankfully, there are things you can do, including an autoimmune diet and the use of customized functional neurology and functional medicine protocols.

Ask my office how we can help you balance and improve your immune health to lower the risk of giving birth to a child with asthma, allergies, autism, or other brain and immune disorders.