Curing your own fibromyalgia, MCS, anxiety, depression

Annie Hopper became a brain retraining specialist. Not because there is a course in a university. And it is not because she is a medically trained doctor or scientist. She became one because she needed to save her life. Out of desperation and survival, she researched and found a way to heal from an illness that left both allopathic and alternative health care practitioners stumped, and left Annie scrambling to survive in a world that seems benign to most of us.

Annie suffered from severe Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS) and was like the millions of people whose role in life seems to be to warn us, like the canary put down in a mine shaft to regulate air quality, that we live in a dangerously toxic world.

After working in a building with poor ventilation, her system got overloaded with normal chemicals used in carpets, paint, heating/air conditioning systems and cleaning agents. The chemical cocktail soup in the "sick" building where she worked as a counselor sent her brain into a high alert, fight or flight response resulting in an increasing sensitivity and complete intolerance to chemicals found in every day household products. Only a few months after overexposure to a toxic environment, her health declined so greatly that she could no longer step inside any building and had to live in a tent. She had debilitating and severe Multiple Chemical and Electrical Sensitivities leaving her with seizures, fatigue and pain.

The allopathic arm of medicine does not understand nor have anything in its arsenal of drugs to deal with people whose systems are so compromised. After she consulted a great variety of doctors, Annie began to realize that she was going to have to find an answer to her health problems herself. She intuited that her problem stemmed from abnormal central nervous system function - her brain was injured.

We know that stress in all of its various forms  - whether it is physical like a car accident or trauma from emotional or mental stress – has an accumulative damaging effect on the brain and can alter brain function. Add to that an increasingly toxic world, and our immune and limbic systems cannot hold up. And clearly when the brain system is compromised, all bets are off. The body and mind can't function well.

The good news is we now know that the brain has this  incredible ability to regenerate. Pooling from a number of different resources, along with her personal research and first hand experience, Annie created a system she calls 'Dynamic Neural Retraining' that focuses on how to rewire the limbic system in the brain. Many chronic illnesses like Chronic Fatigue, Fibromyalgia, Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, Chronic Pain Syndrome and Anxiety Disorders are rooted in limbic system impairment. Rewiring this region of the brain has helped many decrease or eliminate completely the symptoms of illness, even those who have been chronically ill for decades.

The innate ability of the brain to heal is called neuroplasticity. In her workshop Annie methodically relays the science of neuroplasticity along with practical exercises that are necessary to rewire the limbic system of the brain. This shift and brain rewiring process is not unlike the rehabilitation process that a stroke patient would undergo.  Through rehab a stroke patient learns to recruit other parts of the brain to take over function for the injured area. 

This past Feb. 26-28 and the following weekend on March 5-7 Annie facilitated her workshops at the Muir Woods Community Center in Mill Valley, CA. Check her website (http://www.dnrsystem.com/calendar.html)  for more local offerings.

Dynamic Neural Retraining - As more and more adults and children with central nervous system disorders show up, more sufferers will need to take the lead for viable and alternative healthy solutions.

                              Dynamic Neural Retraining System

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