Although research does not report any significant side effects from brain stimulation, I have experienced various side effects in my office.
These are always temporary and cannot be definitely attributed to neurostimulation, but are still worth reporting to colleagues.
Please colleagues: if something like this occurs to you, let me know, let us pool our “evidence level 4 expierience”.
Side effects due to brain stimulation
When you carry out an “off-label” therapy or a new “non-guideline-compliant therapy”, the most important thing is of course safety.
That’s why I always check eacht time we use stimulation the study database scholar.google.com for “safety” and of course I have Petros Kattou (DO AUS) in the back, who has been treating this way for many years each day 20 patients.
SOZO Braincenter = American medicine
The AIMIS clinics are clinics founded in Cyprus by US doctors, of course treated with the best local Cypriot physicians but also with the best US doctors. In the USA, every patient has a whole battery of lawyers behind them who sue for every little thing – free of charge for the patient, the lawyers are paid from the recourse claims. Its amazing to just open an US newspaper and look at the lawyer’s ads in the back.
That’s why US medicine uses extreme precautions and treat only using guidelines. I got to know this to this intensive extent for the first time at Petros, where we have to sign NDA, where only tDCS devices and neurostimulators that have the appropriate approval (also for home treatment) can be used.
Are there any side effects caused by transcranial direct current stimulation of the brain or the transauricular brainstem stimulator (vagus stimulator)?
All studies show roughly the same picture –> NO
A) tDCS – cerebral stimulation
tDCS as direct direct current stimulation of the cerebrum is safe and has no side effects and is now approved for multiple daily use every 4 hours.
We use a tDCS Device that is approved for medical treatment also for home treatment under supervision of a physician.
B) trans-auricular vagal stimulation
Vagus stimulation is safe and has no side effects by the treatment – the side effects are mainly due to the implanted pacemaker locally in the neck,
A current meta-analysis from 2022 shows side effects of 13/100,000 applications, mostly in the form of Ear pain (from the electrode), Electrical feelings (from the current) and Headaches. According to this study, there is no causal relationship between worsening of the disease and vagal stimulation.
we use anyways a subcutaneous application of the vagus stimulator with tiny perforating needles that reach into the ears deeper neural plexus, we dont stimulate the skin nerves. The exact nerval pathway is in my opinion not yet discovered because the Nerves in question: N. auric. magnus and N. auriculotemp. are not directly connecte to the Tractus solitarius which is activated via our brainstem stimulator as functional MR has shown (Univ. Maastrich).
i.e. in the study landscape this is a maximally safe therapy!
my own experience shows that there are possible side effects
We have been doing this therapy in practice since September 2023 and have overlooked around 40 of our own patients as well as around 40 patients that Petros treated in Vienna in September, and I have also seen a total of around 40 patients in Cyprus.
This means that we have a daily growing experience of around 120 patients with neurostimulation. We are currently treating 2-3 patients with it because I have to wait so long for an appointment and will only be able to properly use this new therapy starting next year.
So what did I experience?
Epileptic-seizure under tDCS therapy
A patient on whom we performed tDCS BECAUSE he suffered of repeated epi-seizures due to a meningioma (brain tumor) and especially because of incipient dementia had many hours after tDCS application a “strong epi-seizure”
The studies I have extracted say exactly the opposite: tDCS is used both
- in Epilepsy as well as
- brain tumors applied,
there are no noticeable side effects and a relatively good response rate.´.
By the way, vagus stimulation is also VERY positively rated in the studies on epilepsy.
Deterioration of chronic progressive MS under vagal stimulation
There was just now an MS patient who credibly reported a noticeable aggravation of her MS symptoms since the beginning of transauricular brainstem stimulation (= vagus stimulation).
She experienced a worsening of their MS symptoms, as well as the appearance of new symptoms and pain.
She is a patient that has MS for 20 years but recently switched to chronic MS and now not anly longer responding to new biologicals or the cortisone infusion and was lying for 2 months at the last attack, but was already mobile for 1 month before our vagal stimulation.
Nevertheless, you have an anti-inflammatory effect described in studies by vagal stimulation in MS.
Something else – the case of Longcovid and ME/CFS
Petros has shown us many cases of patients that are rather quickly improved, e.g. in following article of mine
CFS-Testimonial – amazing Improvement in short Time with Brain-Stimulation
now this 2 cases are marvellous, unbeliefable !
but in my limited expierience I see a different picture
ME/CFS – reacts positively but only slowly
I came to Petros in Cyprus thanks to the Michael-Stingl tweet about “transauricular vagus stimulation” in rabbits with good effects on pots/pons.
In contrast to Petros, who has seen a relatively rapid improvement in this disease through his brain stimulation, our ME/CFS patients are very tough.
We need 6 weeks of vagal stimulation to achieve a noticeable – but small – effect. Given the rather high price of the DUCEST Stimulator which is in the range of 700,- this is difficult to carry privatly by the patient: this device switches off irreversibly after 500 hours of therapy (=3 weeks).
Now how is the difference in response between ME/CFS cases explainable?
I think we are dealing with several disease concepts
- ME/CFS with GPCR-AB – typically you see PEM and CRASHES and neccessity to PACE
- ME/CFS as chronic viral reactivation – no GPCR-AB and no PEM, just permanent Fatigue and neurological and physical impairment
The second type of ME/CFS reacts very good to Brainstem-Stimulation, the first one due to being autoimmune needs much longer treatment time.
I suspect that I am stricter in the diagnostics here and I put the name ME/CFS only with PEM and CRASH – or – with corresponding antibody evidence as a diagnosis, the other cases are simple Fatigues and postiviral persistent cell danger response according to Prof. Navioux.
finally – incomplete list of where to use this treatment system
Brain stimulation works for
- Parkinson’s under tDCS – extremely fast effect in practice, long-term is tedious, neets long lasting therapy with months of tDCS-assited training
- Chronic – years-long – complex pain under tDCS – extremely quick effects that last, outstanding –> see chapter 1 in the book of Norman Doidge who exactly explains the pathophysiological background behind CRPS
The Brain's Way of Healing: Stories of Remarkable Recoveries and Discoveries (English Edition)
- Doidge, Norman (Author)
- Brain degenerative processes: take months but you actually start to see effects
- Microperfusion – I did a wonderful webpage showing tons of videos about capillary microperfusion
- Everything seems to be working well with the Petros, I’ve already shown enough cases here (menu item “Brain stimulation” and will always post testimonials when there is a new disease.
to be completed when we have more expierience, we started BRAIN-STIMULATION according to Petros Kattou only in Sept. 2023
If you are a doctor and want to get training with this system please consult following Link, if you are a patient interested in such a treatment use this link.
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