Dozens of Google searches, doctor visits, diet changes and emotional rollercoasters—you’ve tried everything you know and you are still symptomatic.
You may have even been told that your current symptoms couldn’t possibly be due to the concussion you got months or even years ago. They were supposed to subside after eight weeks. Maybe your symptoms didn’t even show up until long after you hit your head.
You have valid concerns and you are right to question whether or not your lingering symptoms have a connection to your head injuries. Head injuries can cause a cascade of problems for years and even decades after the initial injury.
We understand how frustrating and upsetting this process can be. You have taken your health into your own hands and researched, cried, researched and cried some more (it’s an exhausting process). You may have even enjoyed small wins but they are not worth celebrating anymore because they are always short-lived. You need direction. You need answers!
We are here to take away the mystery for you and help you put the pieces of this confusing puzzle back together. You want and deserve answers—and we have them for you. Let’s talk more about why concussions can cause lingering symptoms and the techniques available to help you recover once and for all.
Why Am I Still Dealing With Concussion Symptoms?
Most of the people we see at Neurvana Health have symptoms that persist a minimum of eight weeks or more after their concussions. Conversely, some people have typical head or whiplash injuries after being in a car accident but they typically don’t get symptomatic until years later.
In addition, symptoms can linger for years and even decades if not helped by proper therapies. This is because post-concussive symptoms are difficult to figure out with so many factors to consider.
Are you feeling one or more of the following hormone-related symptoms?
- Memory issues
- Cognitive issues
- Brain fog
- Irritability and agitation
- Anger
- Easily upset
- Low mood
- Overwhelmed
- Anxious
- Unable to tolerate life
- Irregular temperature
- Disrupted menstruation
- Body pain
- Sleep disturbances
- Weight gain / weight loss
People typically don’t associate many of these symptoms with concussions which is why diagnosis can become confusing for doctors. Head injuries can cause a cascade of hormonal imbalances which makes recovery difficult to nail down. In addition, two people can suffer similar head injuries but their symptoms can be entirely different. This is why categorizing symptoms based on the type of injury is often ineffective.
The State of Your Health Before Your Injury
Let’s take a step back here. What you were facing before your injury also plays into your symptom picture after your injury.
You may have felt fine and were asymptomatic—that is until you got into a car accident or suffered a concussion or head injury.
A lot of people think that because they are asymptomatic, they aren’t dealing with health issues. But, your body is always facing a stressor whether it is chemical, toxic, immune-related, mental-emotional or other. These stressors can add up but still not reach the threshold where you start to notice symptoms. But, then you injure your head and/or neck, and all of a sudden you become symptomatic. The injury doesn’t even need to have been major enough or diagnosed as a concussion. Your stress tank may have already been full and your injury just caused it to overflow, which is when you start to see symptoms.
This is another reason why each person may exhibit different concussion-related symptoms, and also why recovery may look different for each person. Every person had different stressors before the injury and will respond in different ways as a result.
In these cases, we have to look deeper than the actual symptoms and uncover what was going on before the injury.
We know this because the people who come to Neurvana Health have already done the typical therapies to recover from head injuries (chiropractic, hyperbaric oxygen, diet and nutrition) but they are still symptomatic. While these therapies can be helpful, they may not work long-term because you aren’t getting to the root cause. We now know that head injuries can trigger symptoms of stress overload.
Vagus nerve involvement
Dealing with digestive issues? It may seem strange how digestion would be tied to a head injury but they are. Head injuries can impact our vagus nerve function. The vagus nerve runs down from the left side of the neck to the back of the spinal cord and down to the diaphragm. It innervates all of our organs and one of its functions is to regulate:
- Movement through the gut
- Digestion of food
- Absorption of food
- Inflammation regulation
- Microbe regulation
So if you’re having any problems with these…
- Indigestion
- Heartburn
- Malabsorption and weight gain / weight loss
- Bloating
- Bowel movement problems
- Diarrhoea / constipation
…it could be a sign that there is a disruption in the communication between the brain and the gut.
The Solution to Persistent Post-Concussive Symptoms
It may seem like solving this symptomatic puzzle is difficult, but there is a solution—and it works!
We need to get your brain functioning more optimally—like it was before your head injury.
When you hit your head or get whiplash, your brain gets rattled and it does not function at 100%. So it tries to adapt but it doesn’t always do it optimally; we like to say that your brain takes the path of least resistance and it can act kind of dumb (sorry brain, but it’s true).
Ever tried to break your sugar or coffee habit? You know how tough that can be! This is because the brain quite frankly is lazy and dumb at times. It is a creature of habit and it doesn’t like to change because of the energy it requires.
We do this with a technique called neurofeedback. Neurofeedback is a non-invasive technique that measures brain activity and then through operant conditioning re-trains the brain to help it adjust and function normally again.
ISF Neurofeedback
We talked earlier about how head injury can cause digestive and hormonal issues. This can cause a host of symptoms as discussed earlier because hormones essentially run our body.
To help our hormones get back into balance, we use a focusd technique called ISF (Infraslow) neurofeedback which can reset our brain’s idling rate.
When you suffer a head injury, your idling rate gets slower. To explain this, it’s similar to the idling rate of your car. When you start your car, your car is idling if it’s not in motion. When it’s cold outside, your car can take longer to start or it may not start at all. With about 85% of people who suffered a head injury, their idling rate is slower than normal which results in the hormonal and digestive problems we discussed earlier (emotional, sleep, anxiety, gut, etc). This also causes an inflammation cascade in the body that lingers until addressed correctly. ISF neurofeedback resets your idling rate (makes it higher) to help balance your body systems.
We Are Here For You
You shouldn’t have to live less than you were designed to live and constantly wonder if you will ever feel “normal” again. Let’s solve this mystery for you and get you on the road to recovery.
We’ve seen amazing results with neurofeedback here at Neurvana Health and we’d love to talk to you about your unique symptoms and recovery options. Our trained health advisers are ready to talk with you today.
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