Fresno Fibromyalgia Doctor – Dr. Robert Boydston D.C.

For the last three years at the Boydston Institute we have been pioneering non-invasive brain based rehabilitation for fibromyalgia sufferer's in the Fresno / Clovis region, ultimately serving the entire Central San Joaquin Valley serving patients from Sacramento to Los Angeles.  Non-invasive brain based rehabilitation is a chiropractic sub-speciality we use that has produced wonderful outcomes for our fibromyalgia patients.

Brain Based Rehabilitation is a way of looking at the brain from a functional perspective. Fibromyalgia is ultimately a neurological condition. In real simple to understand terms, fibromyalgia patients process pain completely different than the rest of us. What I might feel as just a light touch on my arm, the fibromyalgia patient will perceive as pain.

So to really make a huge difference in the life of a fibromyalgia patient, a doctor really needs to examine neurological and brain function very closely, looking for findings that will reveal weakened brain areas. Once the specific lobe of the brain, functional brain area, and side of dysfunction are determined with testing, we rehabilitate that region with treatments that improve fuel and activation.

That’s the focus of our Brain Based Fibromyalgia Recovery program. In Non-Invasive Brain Based Rehabilitation we are turning ON the brain of the fibromyalgia sufferer and making sure that the right and left sides are integrated, working together, and balanced.

How do we do that? We use everything we can to activate the parts of the brain that need it. We use specific forms of sensory stimulation…like different kinds of light, sound, vibration and certain smells.  We use specific eye movements, cognitive visualizations, imagery exercises. We work on the cerebellum with special core exercises, non linear complex movements, and caloric stimulations.

And the whole point is to turn ON your brain. I want to talk more about how we do that.

Think of your brain as a solar powered calculator.  If kept out of the sunlight, the power diminishes.  What we do is use specific therapies to turn the light back on so your brain functions like it should. 

So what are WE actually doing to treat you? 

Well there’s 100’s of different therapies we may use – it depends on the area that is weak for you. Let’s go through a couple of these…

We might do things such as do some vestibular therapies using head tilts and rotations and body motions to fire off the inner ear, and then thus the cerebellum and then the cortex. 

  We can also do things like different balancing sorts of exercise.  We have you stand on one leg and throw a ball up in the air.  We might have you on the floor doing specific core exercises to activate your cerebellum. We also use vibration because vibration is a powerful stimulator to the joints, muscles and the cerebellum.

Tactile stimulation is great because it stimulates the parietal lobe. When you feel something, an object or texture, your parietal lobe really starts to fire. So we use what we call a “grab bag” full of all sorts of objects, and shapes—and we do different exercises with  them that activate the parietal lobe.

Targeting is great for the parietal lobe and the cerebellum because the parietal lobe is what helps you know WHERE things are. Being able to accurately target something depends on knowing WHERE it is. So if you have a parietal lobe problem, we would use targeting exercises for your hands, feet, fingers, or toes.

 We use a special computer program called Hemistim. We can program this software to make these squares flash at a certain speed with certain colors that will stimulate a certain side of your brain.  On top of that, we can make the red ball move in different directions that you have to follow with your eyes. This is called smooth pursuit tracking.

Saccades are quick eye movements between two points. The frontal lobe is responsible for making these happen. So saccade exercises are a way to activate the frontal lobe. And remember the frontal lobe is often weak in fibromyalgia.

Visual discrimination is a therapy where we make you use one side of your brain. Here’s an example.

It’s the E, right? Seeing the big picture, or the lowest frequency letter, is the job of the right brain. So if I show you a series of these and tell you to tell me what the big letter is , we’re exercising your right brain. And it’s just opposite for the left brain. It picks out the details. So if you saw the A’s, that was your left brain being a little dominant.

The next thing we might do in our rehab program are proprioceptive exercises…

It’s a big word, but what it means is “unconscious” perception of where your body is and what it’s doing. So, when you close your eyes, you don’t fall over because your brain is getting signals from your joints and muscles and those signals are going to your cerebellum and parietal lobe.

In people with fibromyalgia, this proprioception is usually pretty bad. We’ll test you to see if this is the case.

We might do AUDITORY STIMULATION: listening to sound in one ear will stimulate the opposite side of the brain and increase impulses. Different types of sounds (frequencies, tones, pitches) affect the right and left sides of the brain differently.  We use professionally, especially composed music that specifically activates one side of the brain. We use right brain music if your right side is weak, or left brain music if your left side is weak.

OLFACTORY STIMULATION: Your sense of smell is special. Your sight, sound, taste, and touch all travel through a sensory area of your brain called the thalamus. However, SMELL GOES DIRECTLY TO THE BRAIN–there's no middle man. Smells are powerful brain stimulations. I'm sure you've experienced this….the smell of homemade cookies baking in the oven brings fond memories of your childhood flooding back…makes your mouth water. Or on the other hand, just a whiff of spoiled milk makes your stomach turn. Smells you like stimulate the left side of the brain. Smells you don't like stimulate the right side of the brain.

CALORICS: a small amount of warm water in the ear will stimulate the semi-circular canals in your inner ear. They send massive signals through the vestibular nerve in a chain reaction to several important brain areas: the cerebellum…the cortex..then down to the lower brainstem (pontomedullary region). Remember, it's your lower brainstem and cortex that slow down the over-firing upper brainstem (mesencephalon). Caloric stimulation is also fantastic for treating dizziness.

And then of course we have to use chiropractic adjustments. Adjustments work because they’re incredible brain stimulations, not to mention just helping the musculoskeletal joints and everything move the way they’re supposed to so that we get good communication; but the adjustment itself is a very powerful stimulation to the cerebellum, the thalamus and the  parietal lobe.  We adjust the spine and the arms, legs, feet and hands. And so we’re going to use them, but we’re going to do what’s called unilateral adjusting.  We’re going to be very specific, once again that’s one of my favorite words, about where we’re going to adjust them and what side we’re going to adjust them…in order to strengthen the side of the brain that needs to be strengthened. 

If there is a decrease of firing or impulses in one side of the brain, I only want to stimulate the joints on the opposite side. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Don't worry…I WILL ONLY USE VERY LIGHT INSTRUMENT ACTIVATION SO YOU WILL NOT GET WORSE!  Have you ever had a massage, a chiropractic adjustment, or physical therapy and felt worse afterward? It is because the treatment was TOO MUCH for your nervous system.  It over-stimulated you and you crashed… it Exceeded Metabolic Capacity (EMC).

We also use the DRX9000 spinal decompression machine. It is designed to gently, safely, and effectively help treat lumbar disc herniations, and sciatica. Many fibromyalgia patients have some major structural issues with their low back. Spinal decompression allows us to fix those problems…without surgery. It’s another great tool in our rehab program. Not only does it gently stretch and repair the discs in the back…the slow stretch of the muscles is a great stimulation to the cerebellum.

That is an overview of some of the treatments we use in our Fibromyalgia Neuro-Metabolic Solutions Program.

If you would like to request a 30 minute video that goes through our program in more detail and reveals the inner workings of our Neuro-Metabolic Solutions program then you can request our Neuro-Metabolic Solutions Report Below.

If you would like to apply to our Fibromyalgia Neuro-Metabolic Solutions Program, then CLICK HERE to learn how you can apply.