Change Your Brain Every Day - Can Colored Filter Lenses Change Your Life? with Helen Irlen

Episode Date: March 6, 2019

People who suffer from Irlen Syndrome have trouble processing certain visual stimuli, particularly words and numbers. The surprising method of treatment involves the wearing of a special pair of tinted glasses. In the third episode of a series on Irlen Syndrome with Helen Irwin, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen discuss how these lenses can change the way your brain processes information and change your life.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome back. We are here with Helen Erland and talking about the Erland syndrome and how colored filtered lenses can literally change your life. In this

podcast, I want to talk about traumatic brain injury. So here at Amen Clinics, 40% of the patients we see have had a traumatic brain injury of significance at some point in their past. It is of epidemic proportions that no one knows. It's a major cause of psychiatric illness, anxiety, depression, temper problems, marital problems, domestic violence, and so on. And this is about 12 years ago, I started my NFL work and we've scanned and treated about 300 NFL players. And I think half of them have the Erlen syndrome. It's amazing that if you don't inherit it, that having a car accident, having played a contact sport,

can often trigger headaches, irritability, reading problems, depth perception issues. And you can imagine if you're an NFL player and you get whacked a lot in the head, but if it gives you depth perception problems, even just a smidge, it can cost you millions of dollars in contracts because you're not going to be quite as good as you were. We actually have a number of hockey players as well because head trauma is very common in hockey. And when we figure out they have the Irwin syndrome, we'll actually tint their masks, whatever color, and they become better hockey players. So talk about your experience with traumatic brain injury. Yeah, it's an interesting concept. And I guess one that's more prevalent. What I was thinking

about as you were talking is, it doesn't even have to be a sport that's necessarily thought of as a contact sport someone told me about synchronized swimming and how they get head injuries and i went what what and they go well they can be out of sync and if they oh get heads and they hit heads cheerleading is oh yeah no that one there's a cheerleader we saw it all the time oh so you, I always quote your quote that the only safe sport that Daniel Amon says is ping pong. Unless you're a grandson who got hit by a ping pong paddle. Anyway, but that, again, has become very prevalent. We've seen 500 military men and women. And they all, it's not identified in the military

because they're not bleeding to death. I'm not sure they would want to know. Of course they would want to know because they'd be more accurate. Yeah, but then they have to like actually help them. They had such a hard time even identifying TBI and PTSD. But then they have to actually do something about it. And it's hard to separate it out. So it's interesting for us because we do pre and post testing with everyone who we see

who has had some type of head trauma to look at which factors then we can eliminate and which ones are resistant and are really related to PTSD and some brain injury that we're not touching because we're basically dealing with, as you know, the visual cortex. So memory becomes resistant and one of the last ones to start to get better and has nothing to do what we do with. And a lot of times the sleep issues stay a problem for them because of the anxiety and the depression. But anything that we've been typically dealing with is able to get better. And so as I had mentioned before, they're able to now read before they could maybe get through a sentence to a half a page. So now they can be under fluorescent lighting without it triggering their headaches and their migraines

and nauseousness, the dizziness, the feelings of agitation and irritability, that feeling of, I just got to get out of here, fight or flight feelings. So they can be under fluorescent lighting. And they can think about going to school and they can think about going to school they can think about going back to school to having a career because they're going to be medically discharged i see a lot now of car accident victims who um it's again it's not recognized by most neurologists and so they've gone to no training so it doesn't exist it doesn't exist yeah with the ophthalmologist it's even worse it's not it doesn't exist it's really shouldn't you know they totally just so is there a controversy among the ophthalmology

field and the optometrist because i know they also get involved in visual training and reading and my optometrist who I adore she's actually my cousin she'd never heard of it but she's open-minded so she went and learned about it right and and she trusts me and if I say look I have thousands of people we've diagnosed over the last 25 years. It radically changes their life. Why wouldn't you want to just pay attention to it? And the treatment is so simple. It is simple as long as you know how to diagnose it. You can't self-diagnose because you don't know what it's supposed to look like or how it's supposed to feel. So the key to this is two things. One is to have someone who's been trained, who's an expert at asking the questions the right way,

to be able to pull exactly what's happening that shouldn't be happening. And then two, the recognition that everyone's brain is uniquely different, just like we have uniquely different fingerprints. So no one color works for every person. We've done runs on thousands and thousands and thousands. And you actually have some of the lenses here. Yeah. I brought some of the lenses along.

Let me put one on and see. Yeah, this one was wild. So it's sort of a pinkish lens. And when I put it on, it actually made things look more blue and crisp. So I thought that was pretty wild. That actually makes me worse. Oh, see that made me better. And that's a good point.

We are not the same, are we? We are not. I wonder if it makes conservative people more conservative. Really? No, it's getting back to what you said in terms of the brain's ability to read the wavelengths of light. That has a prescription. Yeah, see the ocean in the background on our screen

is like bluer to me. But the other thing that we do use before that is we want to make sure we don't put anybody in our own spectral filters unless they actually have the problem. Yeah, see, and that's the thing. So I'm looking at your patterns and so I'm looking around, nothing else looks different to me. It just looks crisper.per does that make sense but i don't see change in patterns i

don't see change in light i don't see so that's why the website erlin.com has self-tests so it's very easy to self-identify yourself or somebody if you have it um and then we do a screening. And again, we're looking at setting them up to look at certain patterns that will quickly pull that individual with the symptoms, if they have Erlen, that occur at some point when they're reading and doing visually intensive activities. So they get to look at, and they have to count one of the columns, and then they have to keep looking at it. And it's that sustained looking. Oh, no, see, I can't do that. I have to put my finger on it. Right.

There's no way I could sit there. I keep telling you, you have her on. No, no, I can't. And I can't do it with numbers either. If there's a whole bunch of zeros or a whole bunch of ones, I have to put my number on, my finger on it. Well, one of the things that we do after we... Because they start to all run together. Yeah. Oh, here we go.

So we've had a diagnostic... We can do a diagnostic right here. Yeah, and the funny thing is, I actually was really good in math in school, but if numbers were a whole bunch of numbers together, I just had to make sure that I wasn't mixing them up't well mixing them about the kids who have problems doing that so then at this point with the screening we use different colored overlays to make sure that we can stop i just thought of something and it's that we can stop and many times it's a combination of overlays

or a combination of densities it It just depends on the individual's brain. I'm having all these like breakthrough moments right now. I have to ask you a question. Go ahead. So it makes sense to me all of a sudden. Is that why like maybe like some people like me, better in my daughter actually, better in things like I was better in algebra than I was in basic math because the numbers would, like I'd have to like slow down and look at the numbers to make sure I wasn't mixing them up. My daughter is the same thing. She's not as good in basic math as she is in geometry, because the formulas are not hard.

It's the numbers. And numbers and columns. The columns. Yes. Oh, no. But. Well, I don't have my regular glasses on. If we come up with the right color.

Oh, well, here are the numbers. They're in columns. Yeah, there's no way. And for many people, it merges together. It doesn't stay straight. Oh, I would have never thought of myself. Certain colors can make it better. An accountant would have made me slight crazy. Certain colors.

And what I'm doing is putting different colors down. I need to get my regular glasses, though. That's okay. I'm just showing you. Yeah, but this color looks I'm just showing you. Yeah but this color. Certain colors can make it better but certain colors can make it worse. That's what playing with colors is dangerous. You can over saturate the brain and create more symptoms without realizing it. So interesting. So we come up with the right color we make sure they're given a color, their overlays to go home read with to make sure that this is making a difference and then they come back and then for their second appointment

and we come up with a color that they can wear the appointment for the screening is about an hour and a half but to come up with the right color when you're wearing it um is about a two hour appointment to a two and a halfa-half-hour appointment. That's trippy. And you have centers. I have centers in, what, 46 countries now? And, I don't know, screeners all throughout the U.S. And those are listed, again, on Erlen.com.

So people can go. And they can get online and play with it. What's fun is on the website, we have colored glasses on top. And so you can change the page and try reading with the different colored glasses. And that's another question I have because I remember even when I was in college, I can't remember where I heard it. Someone told me they had to change the background screen on their computer. Right. Now, could that have something?

Is that a similar type thing while you're typing? But that's what they're doing. They're coming up with a concept um so they change more yes the concept for those who have erlin is to have it the opposite instead of a white background a black background with white print a lot of people are lowering the brightness you are yeah up your brightness um again, to compensate for it. But it exists all the time, and you're paying a price. And, Daniel, you know that they pay a price in terms of when their brain is under stress, their health and well-being, not just the performance.

So interesting. Did you know that, Skip? So when we come back, I have a story. It's one of my favorite stories that I often tell a lot about a before and after scan. And you'll want to hear this. Stay with us. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're interested in coming to Amen Clinics, use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation

at amenclinics.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.