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Real Stories: Device Helps Deliver Good Night Sleep
More than 30 years after returning from Vietnam, Mike Davis still could not get a good night's sleep. This decorated Veteran spent two tours in Vietnam, serving as an Attack helicopter pilot in the Army, where a gunshot wound in the ankle ended his military career. After his return, life simply was not the same. For years, Mike insisted that he did not have any problems. "I was in passive denial," he explains. He continued to fly in a civil capacity, fighting forest fires and logging in the Pacific Northwest.
In February 1982, an accident had a profound impact on his life. One of the blades on his helicopter broke and Mike went tumbling in the air. After crashing to the ground, he was unconsciousness for 45 minutes and has only a few flashes of memory from the accident. Three days later and fully conscious, Mike was faced with his physical injuries; severe TBI, four compression fractures in his low spine, three in his neck and all but two ribs broken.
From that point, his sleep patterns became worse, coupled with chronic pain in his back. He turned to pharmaceutical solutions to help ease the effects of insomnia. "They were my pass-out pills," described by Davis as the only way he could get to sleep. Many years and therapy sessions later, an Army Major introduced Mike to a new device, saying the Cranial Electrotherapy Stimulation (CES) device was "Like a TENS unit for the brain." At first, he was skeptical. He did his own research about the device and the scientific studies supporting the therapy.
Once convinced, he tried the Fisher Wallace Stimulator. After the first several treatments, Mike started slowly cutting back on the sleep medications. Using the device two times per day; once each morning and evening, he began to see improvements. Within a few months, Mike found himself completely off his sleep-assisting medications.
Mike continues his treatments and, unlike before using the CES device, now awakes feeling better than when he went to sleep. The bad dreams that haunted him since Vietnam have ceased and he has dramatically decreased his use of pain medications, as well. What advice does he have for others? He encourages people in similar situations to try the device as a potentially viable alternative to medications. Mike suggests that the device worked well for him but may not work for everyone.
Mike Davis is now sleeping well. He spends his awaking hours as National Director of Vietnam Combat Veterans, Ltd.; VET-NET, a communications and service network for Veterans and their Family Members. Learn more about VET-NET at http://VET-NET.org/. To learn more about the Fisher Wallace Device
Neurotech Network provides a resource page for Sleep Monitoring and Diagnostics including community resources and access to information about treatments. Click here to access our Sleep Educate Page.
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