I have had AD/SD for 13 years. I find very interesting Narelle's comment on the brain followed by the comments on GERD and would like to address both from my perspective. I told my doctor that emphatically, "my brain works better following my Botox shots." I think he thought I needed a shrink....maybe it WAS just the lessening of stress, but I attribute Botox to bringing my intelligence quotient up to what it gets to be pre-Botox. It is a real fact for me.
I was diagnosed as having acid reflux years ago by my ENT because I had an ulcer beside my vocal cords that would not go away...even with reflux meds (up to triple dosages) every day. I had no symptoms other than raw, bad tasting mouth (and the ulcer) and could not understand WHY the variety of reflux meds would not help. I took them for several years. To the contrary, the 24 hr PH probe showed NO reflux on meds, but considerable reflux off meds. I decided to have the reflux laproscopic surgery (last August) where they cinch up the top of the stomach opening making the opening from the stomach to the esophagus much smaller. Thus the floodgates have been closed for acid, bile - whatever - to come up as powerfully as they had been doing. In the past 5 months, the QUALITY of my voice following Botox has improved tremendously and the duration of shots AND quality is longer. It's hard to say what the improvement should be attributed to because I have also changed doctors in the past year which gave me a little improvement, but since reflux surgery I feel I've seen marked improvement on quality and duration following my shots....to the point of considering Dr. Berke's surgery, but now have decided I can deal with this a while longer. Has anyone else had similar experiences?
My thoughts on this are that when botox is working for cerebral palsy or SD etc., it gives the body/brain a chance to stop focusing on spasming/pain/etc. and instead fully interact with the world as others do, thus increasing brain activity. Pain and illness or even a spasming voice can be very physically and emotionally distracting, not allowing one to perform at one's intellectual best.So I doubt it's the botox having any direct systemic or neurological effect, but instead a secondary reaction arising from the fact that the person is finally (temporarily) free from the distracting/consuming nature of their illness.
Laurie
Knowing the intricacy of the Brain's chemistry, i think that any treatment that stops an involuntary movement would probably allow for changes in chemistry, as it is chemistry that cause these problems in the first place. Any increased brain activity involves chemical reactions. I believe it's a little more complicated than just one's brain having time out...the activity was noted to be ongoing, after the botox has worn off. This may well explain why some people's SD gets better the more botox treatments they have? I was not insinuating that it actually made me smarter...I think the physical relief definitely played a part in my feeling "brainier" after one :)N
--modified by Narelle Lehane at Tue, Jan 29, 2002, 00:15:01