"A cure for vertigo, phobias, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and car sickness: correcting inner ear dysfunction with a new applied kinesiological method" - Letters to the Editor

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients,  Oct, 2002  

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Editor:

Liddy is a 36 year-old business woman and active mother of two. She had suffered from severe attacks of incapacitating vertigo for over 20 years, two or three times a month. She also had frequent, less severe dizzy spells occurring several times a day. In addition she had a marked phobia of flying. Previous medical treatment had consisted of meclizine as needed for her severe attacks. After her first treatment at my office in Denver, she flew with her family to the east coast. For the first time in memory, she had almost no anxiety at all on the plane. After a further few weeks of treatment, her dizziness and vertigo completely disappeared.

Ginnie is a 31 year-old writer who had suffered severe disabling attacks of vertigo twice monthly since she was a child. Additionally she would have dizzy spells several times a week, and shooting head pains daily which had been diagnosed as trigeminal neuralgia. After a month of applied kinesiological treatment, her head pains completely ceased. Her vertigo vanished as well.

James is a 42 year-old man who was sexually molested several times as a 13 year old boy. He continued to suffer the pain and humiliation from this several times daily for his entire life. After a five minute treatment (directed at correcting his inner ear function), he felt completely (and permanently) relieved of his emotional pain. He said he felt as if an act of grace had descended on him.

For many years Carol had frequent episodes of vertigo so severe that she would vomit and periodically have to go to an emergency room. Between acute attacks, she would also have frequent dizziness. Accompanying these attacks were severe migraines, weakness, and neck pain. All of these symptoms completely subsided after several weeks of treatment. These case histories are very typical results; they are not "best cases."

In 1988 Dr. Harold Levinson, a neurologist in White Plains, New York, published a book titled "Phobia Free." (2) Dr. Levinson describes his discovery that 90% of phobic patients have an inner ear disturbance, detectable by electronystagmography. When this inner ear disturbance is treated by medication for vertigo, usually Dramamine or meclazine, the patient's phobias are greatly reduced. Unfortunately it may take a while for the symptoms to subside. The patient has to continue the medication for an extended period of time (years), and of course, they usually have side effects from the medication. Nevertheless, Levinson's discovery is a breakthrough in the field, and has helped hundreds or thousands of his patients. It has also allowed the development of a new, simpler, more effective set of techniques which this paper will describe.

In 1982, Roger Callahan, PhD, a psychologist in southern California, began to develop an amazing set of simple acupressure techniques which could relieve phobias and post traumatic stress disorder (in minutes!) These techniques were derived from Callahan's study of Applied Kinesiology, a specialty in the chiropractic field developed by Dr. George Goodheart, a Detroit chiropractor. Dr. Goodheart, in the 60's and '70's, had discovered techniques which could also cure phobias and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but they were more rudimentary and less effective than Callahan's innovations? (3,4) Goodheart's technique of Applied Kinesiology nevertheless is a more comprehensive method of addressing mind -body states than had been seen before. The techniques that we have found almost universally effective in eliminating non pathological vertigo all grew out of Goodheart's model.

Applied Kinesiology is taught to licensed health care professionals associated with the International College of Applied Kinesiology, an organization of 600 professional members. It is learned in several hundred hours of training. There are a number of textbooks on Applied Kinesiology which provide an excellent introduction to the work. (Most of what is called "kinesiology" today in the health field has only a very small resemblance to AK itself.)

Callahan's work to date is well summarized in his newest book "Tapping the Healer Within."' His method, known as Thought Field Therapy, is remarkably effective in the overwhelming majority of phobias and PTSD cases. Unfortunately, his theory is metaphysical and not scientifically based. This is of no importance to the thousands of patients who have gotten well by his methods. I propose that what Thought Field Therapy actually does is correct an inner ear imbalance by stimulating acupuncture points (an application of Levinson's theory with Callahan's treatment). By starting from this hypothesis, I was able to construct a method to successfully treat vertigo, phobias, PTSD, and even car sickness without using any of Callahan's techniques, but with the same remarkably high success rate. (Callahan of course never mentions vertigo or car sickness.)

Let me sum up the main points so far:

1) Most phobias (and instances of PTSD) are due to a dysfunction of the inner ear. I say this based on my clinical experience of many cases. Somehow, at the time of a trauma or the beginning of a phobia, some change takes place in the inner ear. If this is not corrected over time, whenever the person perceives the phobic trigger (cats, dogs, airplane, elevators, needles, heights, etc.), the inner ear misfunctions and sends a message to the brain, FEEL FEAR! A normal person without this inner ear dysfunction feels little fear in the presence of these triggers. It may be noted that a patient with phobias doesn't necessarily have any dizziness, and patients with vertigo don't often have phobias. One may or may not have both together. Patients with phobias often do have a history of ear infections ( in children ) or sinus problems.