There are very few prescription drugs that I recommend and stand behind. And Dilantin is one of them. Since the inaugural year of Health & Healing (1991) I’ve been touting the benefits of this amazing medication. And nearly 25 years later, I still regularly prescribe this remarkable “smart pill” to patients. Enjoy this flashback blog post that first appeared in the November 1991 print version of my Health & Healing newsletter.
Dilantin: A “Smart Pill” for Your Mental Improvement
How about an inexpensive capsule that markedly reduces anxiety, defuses self-defeating anger, lengthens “short tempers,” increases your power of concentration, improves your memory, significantly elevates your IQ, and improves almost every other aspect of mental function?
And what if I told you that this capsule had an incredible track record of safety. In use since 1938, millions of people have taken it continuously for years, the equivalence of 100 million to 250 million patient years of experience, representing an estimated two trillion doses. Viewed from this perspective, the capsule is far safer than aspirin. And for you, it would be even safer than that, because the amount needed to produce the above positive results is less than the lowest dose generally prescribed.
That capsule is Dilantin, a medication that has been used to control seizures for over five decades.
“Doc, I Want a Higher IQ”
Not many of my patients walk in and say, “Doc, I want a higher IQ.” However, we know that Dilantin alleviates a broad range of dysfunctional states that tend to lower IQ.
An 11-year-old hyperactive boy suffering from “Attention Deficit Disorder” (ADD) and a two-year “Ritalin failure,” takes small doses of Dilantin. He immediately rises to the upper 25% of his class in “behavior,” and begins to do his homework without prompting or help. His mother comments that “he now seems like a normal kid, not a drugged ADD kid.”
A 44-year-old real estate agent is so dysfunctional with anxiety and depression that she literally goes to bed three to five days a month. On Dilantin, all her symptoms clear. She said, “You know, doctor, if I had had this medication when I was in college, I would have gone to medical school.”
A 35-year-old woman with bulimia—a serious eating disorder characterized by eating binges—assures me that her problem is destroying her marriage. She had been in therapy for five years. With Dilantin, her binges stop. She says, “It’s unbelievable. For the first time since I was 12 years old, I can walk into the kitchen and not be afraid of the refrigerator.”
Other Benefits of Dilantin
Dilantin, rather than “just a drug to control seizures,” stabilizes the electrical impulses in the central nervous system, thus allowing normal mental and nervous activity to occur.
Jack Dreyfus*, world famous financier and founder of the Dreyfus Fund, credits Dilantin with the elimination of severe attacks of anxiety and depression that were about to destroy his career. Life magazine recorded his amazing response to this medication in 1966, and since then, Dreyfus has spent more than $70 million of his own money doing research and trying to get the medical profession to realize that Dilantin can eliminate many emotional and mental problems.
Dreyfus founded the Dreyfus Medical Foundation (now the Dreyfus Health Foundation), which collected over 10,000 published reports dealing with the use of Dilantin in conditions other than seizure. He published abstracts of 1,000 of these reports, and cited over 3,000. The foundation then sent this material to every doctor in the country.
Dreyfus is not alone. In 1972, Dr. Walter Alvarez, perhaps the most prominent professor of medicine ever at the Mayo Clinic, and a celebrated syndicated columnist, wrote a book, Nerves in Collision, on the use of Dilantin for calming the hyperactive nervous system.
Dilantin: Used in About 100 Diseases
In 1984, Dr. Marion J. Finkel from the Food and Drug Administration noted that more than 8,000 medical articles have been published in which Dilantin had been used in approximately 100 diseases. In 1991, Dr. Ward Dean published material showing that Dilantin had profound anti-aging properties, acting to restore balance between the central nervous system and hormone-producing glands.
Since Dilantin calms the central nervous system without sedation, it immediately increases one’s ability to concentrate. Millions of individuals are bothered with obsessive thoughts, fear, or anger that makes concentration virtually impossible. When concentration is improved with Dilantin, the measured IQ goes up.
Dr. W. Smith reported that Dilantin significantly improved performance on the Weschler IQ test with highly significant improvement in verbal scale and full scale scores in 20 hospital employee volunteers. In another study of 10 elderly volunteers, average age 69, Dr. Smith found that Dilantin, compared to a placebo, improved concentration and the full-scale IQ test score. He concluded that the improvements were due to Dilantin’s effectiveness in normalizing the flow of nerve impulses in the brain.
Dr. L.R. Hayward found that 150 mg of Dilantin significantly improved the performance of pilots in flight simulation tests. Compared to a placebo, Dilantin lessened response time and increased the number of correct responses in all of the pilots studied.
Why Dilantin Isn’t Used by the Medical Community
You would think that this wealth of information on potential uses of this inexpensive drug would excite the medical profession. Well, it hasn’t, and the reasons for this professional “blindness” are complex. The medical profession has a mind of its own, encased in concrete, with an extraordinary ability to ignore the obvious. It’s no surprise that they pigeon-hole Dilantin as only a “seizure drug”?
When the wide range of benefits of Dilantin began to surface in the 1950s and ’60s, the death knell for the drug had already sounded—its patent had run out. Parke Davis, the major manufacturer of Dilantin, was not about to research expanded use of an unpatented drug. Nor was anyone else. They were off developing Valium, Xanax, and Prozac, and spending millions advertising them in medical journals. In many conditions, these drugs do not work nearly as well as Dilantin, and by comparison, are horrendously toxic.
Dilantin is Legally Available for You
Be that as it may, Dilantin is available and can be rationally and legally prescribed to any patient for any of the conditions discussed above. All that is needed is a doctor with a partially open mind, but as far as Dilantin is concerned, they are as rare as hens’ teeth. However, if you think that you have some of the conditions that may be benefitted by Dilantin, it is best that you prepare yourself before consulting your physician.
Jack Dreyfus’ book, The Story of a Remarkable Medicine is available from several online retailers or from remarkablemedicine.com. If you think that this medication might be helpful to you after reading this material, it is time to consult your doctor. Be sure to take the material with you; you are likely to meet resistance. Please let me know your experience.
If your doctor isn’t willing to prescribe Dilantin, come see us at Whitaker Wellness. Call (866) 632-8890 for a free consultation with a Patient Services Representative today.
* After a long and successful life, Jack Dreyfus died peacefully on March 27, 2009, at the age of 95.
