"I had 3 orthopedic surgeons recommend fusing 3 of my 7 cervical disc, Instead I came to see Dr Leon for treatment. I am now pain free and living an active normal life style. I am able to snow and water ski again. Thank you Dr. Leon!"
 

- Lori Frost

______________________

"Dr. Leon truly is the best of the best and a pioneer in his field.  He saved my life 10 years ago and I am forever grateful!  From a patient to a friend, I am beyond blessed to have him and his incredible team in my life.  Thank you!"

 

- Meg Connolly
______________________

"13 years ago, my wife’s health was declining rapidly due to an MS diagnosis. We tried all the standard treatments by then, all of which did not work or created further issues. As her health was deteriorating, we were introduced to Dr. Leon. His protocols immediately halted the progression of her MS, and even reversed some of the effects of the disease. She never had another exacerbation! It was simply amazing and, we believe, providential. Over the years, we have introduced countless others to Dr. Leon, some who fly in from around the country to be treated by him and his associates. I have never found another doctor with a more caring heart, and expertise in his field. If I could characterize what he gives most to his patients…it would be hope. He is one of a kind."

 

- Joe Battaglia
______________________

"I have collaborated with Dr. Shannon Leon on the care of a large number of patients over the past five years. During that span I have seen firsthand what a knowledgable and caring professional he is. He never ceases to go the extra mile—often succeeding where a host of other clinicians may have failed to bring patients improved function and relief. He and his staff are kind, courteous and readily accessible. With warmth, compassion, good humor and dedication, Dr. Leon continues to care for those with complex neuronal dysfunction. I am always happy to refer patients to Dr. Leon, as he provides the highest level of care—and when I do, I have every confidence that he will do his utmost to place them on the road to recovery."

 

- George Bush, M.D.
Psychiatrist & Chief Medical Officer of MagnetiCare, PLLC
Garden City, NY

______________________

"I am Nicholas Wilson, Englishman from Taunton, Somerset, England, and a sufferer of Secondary progressive MS. My disability is a weakening of my right leg which limits my ability to walk as the leg is relatively unresponsive to the brain command to move in the correct manner for walking. I have poor balance, cannot lift my toes to put on a sock or shoe, and without a straightener device my leg kicks out sideways. I had the pleasure and good fortune to be seen three times by Dr. Case when I was on holiday in June 2018 on Long Island. Through a series of intense exercises involving brain coordination, my ability to walk normally significantly improved and with a few simple exercises I am able to wake up reactions for a period of time which would normally have remained unresponsive and thus not only improve my physical ability but also my attitude to my problems. With this caring and sympathetic approach, it is possible to believe that one can do it, and not subside and give up."

 

- Nick Wilson

______________________ 

 
" I had an easy pregnancy in 2004, except weird pain in my arms that felt like a circulation thing. But my labour was very bad - no time or rest between contractions - just agony for 12 hours straight with not even a break from the pain to crawl off the floor to pee. And then I was forced onto my back in the hospital and even though I cried out that it felt wrong, I was so weak and vulnerable that I could do nothing or say anything to change it. I pushed for 3 1/2 hours and at the end, my son was born blue. At the time, I didn't even know that was not normal. Nobody said anything so I assumed that because I have blue veins in my arms, perhaps he just needed that first breath of oxygen and that would be when all babies turned pink. It wasn't until ages later that I realised that perhaps something was very wrong when he was born, yet nobody in that hospital ever even mentioned it to me. To be fair, I was so traumatized that I must have been about the 4th or 5th person to hold my son as I went into shock and started convulsing so only after all that had passed was I even in a position to hold him. I nursed exclusively for the first 6 months, and then added solids but kept nursing until I gave birth to my second baby 20 months later. But when my son was 6 months old, he had a reaction to the DPT shot. He had seizures for about 2 or 3 weeks following the vaccination. It was awful. And that was when I first started to see a change and notice differences. He suddenly became a more angry, frustrated and an aggressive baby. It is was hard to recognise or even admit this could be happening at the time, so it is more in retrospect that the pieces all seem to connect, but at the time, although I knew that was the moment he changed, I couldn't bear to face the fact that effectively, I had done it to him by giving the shots and not having at least researched the pros and cons first. Even if I had, perhaps I would have done them anyway, for my doctor was so pushy. Now, I believe in waiting until they are at least a tiny bit older, or frankly, until they change the ingredients and safety of them, not at all, especially if you have any allergies, auto immune or toxin processing issues (get tested for MTHFR gene mutations). 

 

As he grew older, I noticed that he did not interact with other children in the same way. I became hyper aware of his behavioural differences and a bit paranoid. I was aware dear friends probably preferred not to have play dates with us, but they did because they were just that - dear friends. But then I disciplined more harshly, to prove that I could see it too - that I did not think all he did was perfect, and I made it worse. There were one or two teachers who were able to handle his tantrums - to avoid them or at least diffuse them if they did occur. But when he was four, he went into a nursery with almost 20 children in his class and that was when the reports back became really bad. To be fair, I knew all about it - we lived with it day in and day out. He would try to bait people - push their buttons and look for a reaction. He did not seem to know how to start to play with other kids - he just bowled in in an aggressive way - not really interactive at all. And he was permanently in the mode of feeling like we were out to get him. I took a parenting course and there I met a friend who was having similar problems with her son who had a diagnosed sensory condition. 

 

After a very difficult year at nursery, that summer he seemed to improve a bit. We only noticed he would deteriorate significantly with specific people who did not hide their disapproval of his behaviors. For those who never seemed to judge him, he actually behaved (comparatively) well. He started primary school that September and within a week, he had deteriorated again and was already being labeled as the naughty child. We acted quickly and pulled him out of the larger environment and put him into an all boys tiny village type school with a very nurturing teacher and only 5 kids in the class. He settled in much better there, but still I would be invited on a play date with some of the new kids and we would never be invited back. At home, we would awaken every morning to the cries of our daughter who would be begging for mercy for him to give back a toy or stop doing something unkind. If he ever was allowed to get too hungry, all hell would break loose and he was like a two year old at his worst. Tantrums, throwing things and so so incredibly angry, as if we had plotted against him and our intentions were pure evil. Our daughter went more and more into a shell and really wasn't developing socially or testing her own boundaries at all, for there was no room for her with all the time we spent trying to keep things calm for our son. We realized it wasn't just us and him being effected - she was effectively being hard wired to be a victim as that was the only role she knew.

 

At school, it wasn't until the end of the year, that I realized he wasn't actually reading at all, but had been memorizing the books after having heard them read in class. He would fake trailing his finger under the words and sometimes be able to see the first letter, but his eyes were unable to track the page. This demonstrated in his eyes rolling in the back of his head but I simply interpreted that as him being lazy and uninterested in learning, and acting like a teenager and so I would get cross at his lack of interest. At the end of the year, when I figured out he had been memorizing the books, I started to test him and was heart broken to discover he didn't have the most basic of reading skills. The whole year when he should have been learning sight words and certain rules, he really knew none of them. Here I thought he was bright when he barely could read or even sound out a single word. I came to believe that he was dyslexic and was told that it was likely he would be officially diagnosed if we took him in for testing.

 

Just after school ended, I reconnected with the friend from the parenting course who said their lives had taken a dramatic turn. At this time, I was actually googling schizophrenia and bi polar disease as I knew for sure there was something different with our son. I was done with blaming the teachers and others and even myself. I knew we were all doing our best and some may have helped and some may have hindered more, but the fact was that there was something wrong - not necessarily enough to be diagnosed, but enough for the world around to think we were doing a terrible job at parenting. And that hurt. This friend told me of a doctor she had taken her sensory issues son to and he had dramatically turned things around for them. His name was Dr Leon, and he was a functional neurologist based in Long Island, NY. I'd never heard of this practice and it sounded like hocus pocus at first, but we were desperate so were ready to try anything and upon hearing how he had helped this friend, whose son was really in a bad place, I became very open to the possibility that he could help us too. For their son, problems had arisen out of a difficult birth, but with some skeletal realignment, daily eye exercises and a change in diet, their son had completely changed for the good and life was dramatically easier. I made an appointment and when I filled out the contact form, the questionnaire make me realize that so many things that I never imagined were connected, indeed were. The toe stubbing the bed wetting and the list went on. At the same time, I started reading "Is That My Child" by Dr Robin Pauc and I realised that so many things that were happening to my son were actually symptoms of something called Development Delay Syndrome (DDS) which is often caused by troubles at birth. 

​

Here are a few of the symptoms our son was displaying: constant unexplained anger, irrationality at times, severe behavioral reactions (which were caused by sugar, e numbers, and certain foods if we paid attention), bed wetting, constant toe stubbing and clumsiness, constant ear aches, occasional inappropriateness with privates, repulsion at physical affection, occasional cruelty to animals or at least inability to assess their feelings, lack of empathy, humming, inability to read or eyes to track page, extreme separation anxiety, inability to gauge risk, which when on the climbing wall or a cliff made for a really impressive kid, but when trying to not hurt someone or indeed himself, was a sorely lacking quality. I could go on and on - so many of the symptoms could just have been put down to him being a real boy, and perhaps he would indeed have eventually grown out of some if not all of them. But all I knew is that our lives were not normal - I saw the relationships others had with their kids, and I saw glimpses of this amazing kid in him, but that is all it was - glimpses here and there and I could never figure out what triggered the bad behavior or indeed the good behavior. We were constantly on egg shells in anticipation of how he might react to something simple that didn't go as he had anticipated. He was a major button pusher and seemed so excited when others were wound up or upset.

 

So we went to Jericho, Long Island in July 2010 and met with this doctor I had heard so much about. I have to say, part of me was expecting miracles, but the other part of me was so skeptical. He assessed our son and when it was all explained to me about the parts of his brain that were under functioning and why, due to his difficult birth, and his vaccine reaction, and how that in turn made other areas dominate and over function, it all made perfect sense. Dr Leon made some chiropractic corrections, and then the neurological ones through our son's eyes. He gave us some incredibly simple eye exercises and requested we keep him off sugar and dairy.

​

When my son and I returned home, we actually had a week when our son deteriorated further, despite doing the eye exercises and keeping to the diet. The doctor had warned this might happen but nonetheless, my husband was distressed and wondered what I had done to him, not to mention the money we had wasted. But then, about a week after the trip, something amazing happened. As we lay in bed one morning, instead of being awoken to the sounds of our daughter sobbing her victim cries, we heard our son's voice. He was offering to share something of his since his sister's had broken. Our eyes flew open and my husband and I just looked at each other in disbelief. Who was this alien in our house and where was our feral but much loved son? And so it continued. Suddenly he was able to sit at the table for a meal rather than tearing around in circles, and not spend his life looking for ways to irritate everyone around him. Still, if we let him go hungry, he would not be great and be irrational, but the behavior was still not as wild as before. And he stopped wetting his bed immediately. Suddenly he would wake up to go to the loo. And he stopped stubbing his toe. These were things we didn't fully realize at first, but then noticed they hadn't happened in a long time.

 

When I took my son to see Dr. Leon, I had simply told my son he was going to get his eyes tested. He had no preconceived notions about why he was there beyond sight improvement, which he had not complained of before. I can't remember what I told him about the change in food, but I have food allergies myself so I may have just linked them to me. But after a few weeks of this new child who had come to live with us in our son's body, I started to explain to him the real reason we were doing the eye exercises, and changing the way he ate. And the crazy thing is, if ever we forgot a few days of eye exercises and he started to deteriorate, he was the one who would beg to do the exercises again. He was less able to notice if he behaved badly, but if ever he hurt his left toe, or wet his bed, he would cry to me that it was because we had stopped doing the exercises. And of course the diet change was hard at first - but only for about 2 weeks. And now they don't like the taste of the old butter, the old milk, the old anything. It is all about what kids are used to. They don't like change and so the point is, no matter how hard changing the food is, living with a child who is negatively affected by food is worse.

​

And the other amazing thing was he started to read. Of course he was severely behind having missed a year. And in order not to crush his ego, we didn't make him start from the beginning books again as we should have, so it was hard going for a while - he had no foundation whatsoever. He had to sound out everything in chapter books, from the word "and" to "the". He didn't have a single sight word. But one day in the spring, 8 months after his first visit to Dr Leon, the penny dropped and he just started reading like a pro and blowing through big kid chapter books. He would have been diagnosed dyslexic if he had not had his eyes tracking corrected, and he may well have been labeled ADHD too if we had believed in that label and had him tested, but seeing this doctor who used purely non invasive techniques, our son can now read and he is just the most wonderful 13 year old boy. A wonderful boy we would never really have had the chance to get to know so well if we had not made the leap of faith and tried out this relatively unknown practice. He is also now the top of his class at a highly academic school, incredibly driven, gets excellent out of a 5 score system for empathy and friendship, and wins all sorts of prizes for everything from sports to creative projects to the academic ones.

​

The next big change happened that November of 2010. My daughter had severe eczema on the backs of her legs and that is a classic sign of celiac disease, which I already have. I'd had it all over my lower legs as a child so I insisted we took her off gluten and since we had taken her off sugar and dairy to be fair to our son, we took him off gluten to be fair to her. First of all, her eczema cleared up almost immediately and only scars were left that disappeared in time. But the other totally unexpected change was in our son. He suddenly took that final turn that we had been hoping the diet and eye exercises would do. He really became a total joy, with no remnants of anger left at all. The gluten had been effecting him severely, and I have since read an article in the Lancet which is a top UK medical journal about how 60% of ADHD kids' symptoms went away when they were on a gluten free diet. That is 5 million American children who are being unnecessarily medicated. And easily cleared up with diet. No easy feat, but very possible if someone really wants to do it. 

​

To me, functional neurology proof is in the results. Our lives have dramatically changed. Not just our son's life, but now our daughter is no longer being hard wired to be a victim - there is room for her to finally have a voice where there was once no space or time in our family, and indeed the strain on our marriage with being constantly on edge is now gone too. And we all have fun now, instead of managing and trying to avoid potential disasters. Kids who really never liked our son are now drawn to him for he is smart, magnetic, creative, imaginative and just plain cool. All that was there before but so hard to decipher through all the anger and issues he was dealing with. He was trapped with a brain that didn't work how he wanted and did things he didn't want or mean to do. So if this science is not science, I don't actually care, because it has made the world of difference to our son and our family. And it is not just our family. I have referred countless people since, and I always hear the most inspiring success stories which just makes me an even bigger advocate for this practice.

​

We have since all four seen Dr. Leon for different issues over the years which I will write about another time. I will also explain more in depth about how not just the eye exercises, but indeed diet, has had a massive impact on the positive changes. Suffice to say that without making those changes to our lifestyle, which was very hard in the beginning, we would never have made the progress we have made. The book Is That My Child explains a lot with loads of case studies too.

​

For now, I hope our testimonial will help at least one family out there. There are options to the struggle at home and at school, and there are alternatives to medications - we just need to be open to finding and trying them."

 

- S. B., Bermuda