From the book: ``A Remarkable Medicine has been Overlooked'' by Jack Dreyfus.
Symptoms and Disorders for Which PHT (Dilantin) Has Been Reported Useful: [not a cure]
Anger (impatience, irritability)
Angina pectoris
Arthritis
Asthma
Cardiac arrhythymias
Cardiac Conduction Defect
Cerebrovascular Insufficiencies
Choreoathetosis
Cognitive function (ruminative thinking, concentration, learning disability)
Continuous muscle fiber activity
(myokymia, myotonia, etc...,)
Depression
Diabetic Neuropathy
Drug & Alcohol Withdrawal
Dysesthesias
Eating Disorders
(anorexia, bulimia)
Enuresis (bedwetting)
Epidermolysis bullosa
Fear
(anxiety, tension)
Fever
Head Injuries
Healing
(systemic & topical)
Hyperkinesia
Hypertension
Hypoglycemia
Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Intractable hiccups
Labile diabetes
Migraine and other headaches
Muscle Spasms
Myocardial infarction
Over-thinking
PAIN
Parkinson's Syndrome
Pruritus ani
Q-T interval syndrome
Scleroderma
Sleep Disorders
Stuttering
Surgery
(pre- and post-operative)
Tinnitus
Toxic effects of other drugs
Trigeminal Neuralgia
Other Neuralgias
Violent Behavior
A second book about Dilantin:
The Dreyfus Medical Foundation published a textbook which goes into more detail. It's 175 pages with 76 pages of journal references.
It's called:
The Broad Range of Clinical Use of Phenytoin --- Bioelectrical Modulator by Dreyfus Medical Foundation.
There's more information in my next post.
[This message has been edited by Recipegirl05 (edited 14 March 2005).]
So, naturally, I begged my PCP for Dilantin in the chewable, pediatric dose of 50 mg to be taken as needed.
I took 50 mg in morning & maybe 50 mg in afternoon.
I had lots of head, face, ear pain, tremors, speech problems and insomnia-----a total mess. Could not function.
It helped immensely.
Many years later I happen to run across a doctor that loved Dilantin. He gave me the higher dose of 300 - 400 mg per day. It slowed me down too much.
But adults can also try the 100 mg capsule to see how you feel on it. If you don't like how you feel on 100 mg, then cut back to only 50 mg. That's the only way to figure out what works for you.
You can check out the book, "A Remarkable Medicine has Been Overlooked" by Jack Dreyfus at your library through inter-library loan. Or, purchase it for $5 on Amazon.com
It is worth the read.
To me, Lyme Disease and Dilantin make a pretty good pair. I thought it might possibly help children with Lyme.
Actually, the point of this post is NOT for physicians to necessarily prescribe therapeutic dosages for children or adults.
(Adult therapeutic doses of Dilantin is about 300 - 400 mg a day.)
However, some adults may feel best at that dose.
But the key to making this work for you is to take a very precise dosing that only the patient can determine during a trial run.
If you don't take enough, it won't help you, but if you take too much------it has just the opposite effect.
If I did too much, it made me cry.
You have to make it work for your own brain chemistry. ``One-size fits all'' DOES NOT work with Dilantin.
I do not believe in masking symptoms, but if you can't get Klonopin & you really need something akin to that which is not addictive, you might want to ``research'' Dilantin.
It also has many potential drug interactions.
You can use www.drugdigest.org to check for those, or check with your LLMD or pharmacist.
Here is the first excerpt about
Dilantin:
____________________
Dr. Julian Whitaker's
Health & Healing
November 1993
Vol. 3, No. 11
One Drug You Don't Want to Overlook
Interested in good medicine?
Let's take a look at Dilantin (phenytoin), an inexpensive capsule from Parke-Davis that has been used for close to 60 years to treat seizures.
However, it is also effective for reducing anxiety, defusing self-defeating anger, taming temper tantrums, controlling phobias, and improving your power of concentration.
A seizure is an explosion of uncontrollable electrical activity.
Dilantin stabilizes the electrical impulses in the central nervous system, thus allowing continuous normal mental activity.
Temper tantrums, loss of concentration, and a whole variety of phobic conditions are like seizures.
They occur when the brain is "jumpy," overwhelmed with unwanted, usually self-destructive activity.
More Than 3,000 Studies Say Dilantin Works
In the early 1960s, financier Jack Dreyfus, founder of the Dreyfus Fund, was hospitalized with a potential career-destroying emotional disorder of depression and anxiety.
He described it as mental "worry gnats" blocking his focus and concentration. He asked for and was given a trial on Dilantin. His problem stopped----immediately.
Dreyfus was so impressed with his results that he has spent almost 30 years using his own money to research the many conditions Dilantin seems to help.
In the mid-1960s he wrote, "A Remarkable Drug Has Been Overlooked."
His Health Foundation has published an anthology of more than 3,000 medical studies showing that Dilantin can effectively treat many of our emotional disorders.
I have been prescribing Dilantin to my patients with a variety of emotional problems for over a decade.
The results speak for themselves: an 11-year-old hyperactive boy with attention deficit disorder and a Ritalin failure
immediately rises to the upper 25% of his class on Dilantin, a 35-year-old women overcomes her bulemia and states, "For the
first time since I was 12 years old I can walk into the kitchen and not be afraid of the refrigerator."
In recent controlled studies with prisoners prone to impulsive aggressive acts, Ernest S. Barratt, Ph.D., found that 300 mg of Dilantin administered daily significantly reduced aggressive behavior.
Impulsive behavior, whether violent or not, is usually characterized by a particular brain wave pattern.
All the prisoners Barratt studied demonstrated this pattern, which tended to subside with use of Dilantin.
Speeds Up Both Learning and Wound Healing
Dilantin quiets your nervous system, allowing you to be more efficient at tasks that require timing and rhythm, such as reading, speaking, and typing.
Dr. Barratt feels the use of Dilantin in children having difficulty acquiring reading and verbal skils will not only facilitate
acquisition of these skills, but possibly short-circuit the pathway to violent behavior.
The only problem with Dilantin is that it lost its patent decades ago.
Though drug companies may be aware of its many uses, they would never promote an unpatentable drug as it would compete with their high-ticket items.
Since the drug companies control what doctors think, most physicians go along with the current fad, and Dilantin sits on the shelf.
This is not just bad medicine, it's terrible medicine.
Recommendation
I've seen many patients who could benefit from small doses of Dilantin, but their phobia of "brain" drugs holds them back.
These are often the same people who readily swallow diuretics, antibiotics, and powerful heart medicines.
If you do suffer from frustration, anxiety, impulsive behavior, attention deficit disorder, or poor concentration, Dilantin is worth a try.
I suggest that you:
1. Get a copy of Jack Dreyfus' book, "A Remarkable Medicine Has Been Overlooked."
Order at: http://www.remarkablemedicine.com/
or www.amazon.com
2. Show your doctor the book and explain that you only want to conduct a therapeutic trial with Dilantin for a week or so.
The usual dose is 100 mg. twice a day------morning and later afternoon.
I recommend performing the "one hour test" described by Dreyfus. You simply write down how you feel, take 100 mg. of Dilantin, and record your feelings one hour later.
I've given 100 mg. of Dilantin to anxious, fidgety, dysfunctional patients whose world had crashed. An hour later, they were making a "to do" list for the rest of the day.
Good medicine is often overlooked.
Dr. Peter H. Langsjoen, Dr. Karl Folkers and Jack Dreyfus found some and as a result, many of my patients are still alive and many who could not cope now can.
The following excerpt is from the book, "A Remarkable Medicine has been Overlooked":
__________________________________________
The One Hour Test
Part I ------Somatic Conditions
These questions pertain to how you feel now. If you answer yes to any question, grade your symptom, on a scale of 1-10
(1, minimal; 10, most severe).
Do you have a headache of any sort?
Before
Dilantin
________
After
Dilantin
________
Any pain or blurring in the eyes?
Any ache or pain in the neck?
In the shoulders, the back, or chest?
Shortness of breath?
Aches or pains in your arms or hands?
Aches or pains in your legs or feet?
Are your hands or feet hot or cold?
Any tingling sensations?
Any "knots" or "butterflies" in your stomach?
Are you trembling now? Hold out your hands and observe.
Do you feel any trembling inside?
Do you feel a pulse, or beat, or throb inside you?
How is your energy now?
Do you have any pain or discomfort not asked about?
The last part of this is in next reply.
Dilantin: A Remarkable Medication
As a "Health & Healing" subscriber, you'll know that in general I am not a spokesman for the benefits of prescription drugs.
However, I am not against using prescription drugs when they work.
I've written about Dilantin before (in November 1991), and because it is so useful, I feel I should mention it again.
The Jones family (all names in this story are fictitious)---mother, father, and two sons---had a lot in common.
They all take Dilantin (phenytoin). I have been following this family for several years.
The younger son, Mark, 11 years old, was nervous, had trouble concentrating, and had an obsession about cleanliness.
He would wash his hands until the skin was red and almost chafed, and would even pull his sweater over his hand before turning a doorknob.
He had experienced excessive anxiety before testing in school. For these symptoms, I recommended 100 mg. of Dilantin daily---a very small dose.
All of his destructive symptoms went away, his grades went up, his obsession with cleanliness was alleviated, he became more social, and he is now editor of the school newspaper.
Their "Flash Anger" Disappeared
His brother, Jim, two years older, used to have "flash anger," just like his dad.
This inability to control impulses affects millions of people, and does nothing to solve the problems that bring on the anger in the first place.
Most temper tantrums only make the problems worse.
Both Jim and his dad take small amounts of Dilantin on a regular basis, which now controls these symptoms.
His mother has cardiac arrhythmia, which is being very well treated and controlled with magnesium.
However, taking small amounts of Dilantin improves her heart function as well as her mood.
Dilantin probably has the safest drug record of any medication available.
Seizure patients have often taken 300 to 500 mg a day for decades with few side effects, and the doses needed to control the symptoms mentioned above are far less.
Actually, these symptoms are like mini-seizures, in that they represent hyperactivity or abnormalities in the nerve impulses in the brain.
Dilantin simply smoothes this out.
Dilantin Turned His Life Around
Dilantin is normally given for seizures. However, Jack Dreyfus, founder of the Dreyfus Fund, credits Dilantin with saving his career, if not his life, back in the sixties.
He was being treated for depression and anxiety, and was even hospitalized for it, but once he took Dilantin on a therapeutic trial, his symptoms went away.
Jack Dreyfus was so enthusiastic about Dilantin that he spent millions of dollars of his own money researching it and getting the word out.
He also wrote a book, "A Remarkable Medicine Has Been Overlooked."
Walter Alvarex, M.D., an internationally known physician from the Mayo Clinic and syndicated columnist, also wrote a book
about Dilantin, entitled, "Nerves in Collision" (Pyramid House, NY, l972---out of print.)
For anyone with anxiety or overly impetuous behavior, Dilantin could be a therapy. Most of the time you don't feel any
difference when taking Dilantin, but if you are unable to control your impulses, or have obsessive behavior, both you and others will notice sometimes dramatic changes.
Recommendations
I encourage my patients to use Dilantin as a therapeutic trial.
Often I'll have patients who refuse to give it a try because of a philosophical stance against taking a "mind-altering" drug.
I explain that Dilantin doesn't do that, it just smoothes out your brain function.
It's very rare that whole families need to take Dilantin, but I also estimate that there is someone in most families that could benefit from it.
Dilantin is a remarkable drug that has been overlooked by conventional medicine.
____________________________
You can get more info on Dilantin on the link below.
(I have ordered from them. I got the Gerovital H3 tablets for depression a couple of times. Dr. Aslan from Austria injected her patients with Gerovital for
arthritis & found out that her patients' depression lifted. You only take tablets 12 days & stop.)
===================== http://www.smart-publications.com/articles/a104-Dilantin.html
=====================
Hope you find this interesting.
Jan
I could barely put it down once I started reading it. I decided that I wanted to try lose dose Dilantin for my continuous headaches.
Yes, it does help. Yay!
Dilantin relieves many symptoms that are common to Lyme Disease. I wonder why Lyme docs haven't figured this out. I know this med wouldn't cure them, but it would make the patients feel so much better.
Dilantin stabilizes bioelectrical activity.
The medical name is Phenytoin (fen-ee-TOE-in).
Jan, thank you so much for posting this information.
Lymies will benefit tremendously when they find out about this.
Carol
I'm so glad to hear Dilantin works for you.
No one can truly understand how wonderful you feel until after you've done a trial run and think-------look what I've been missing.
Anyway, after reading your other post I didn't make the connection that you originally learned about Dilantin from Lymenet until today. Thanks-----too cool.
I just couldn't believe I finally found someone else who's read the Dreyfus book.
I hope others will have a chance to research it out. Dilantin is cheap and non-addictive.
Thanks again Carol for the feedback. You made my day.
Take Care,
Jan
[This message has been edited by Recipegirl05 (edited 15 March 2005).]