Head Injuries and Concussions are Destroying Mental Health
Episode 175
Itsy bitsy bumps to the head are fairly common. But sometimes more severe cases lead to concussions or traumatic brain injury. On today’s episode of Integrative Wellness Radio, we’ll be talking about how some of these concussions and head injuries might be connected to a mental health decline. Dr. Nicole will be walking us through the aftermath of suffering from these conditions and will shed light on how the body reacts to these types of conditions. Listen to the full episode as you will be able to walk away with information that will help you better manage these concussions and brain injuries. Interested in learning more about Dr. Nick & Dr. Nicole’s courses, memberships, or private work? Learn more at Integrative You . Have a quick question, Would you like to schedule a call, or just want to say hi? Text us at 732.913.0009. Our mission to innovate humans & Healthcare does NOT start and stop with us! This is why we are also dedicated to helping other practitioners in evolving healthcare too! If you are a healthcare leader and are looking to up-level your clinical + business excellence Learn more about our course membership: Limitless Healthprenuer and start boldly disrupting this industry! Noteworthy Time Stamps: 03:51 Symptoms of a concussion 06:37 Breakdown of the cascade effect 14:36 Location of the injury is important 27:07 You need to stop dismissing your brain fog 33:30 Talking about the Vagus nerve
Topics: brain, head, injuries, concussions, health, injury, mental, symptoms
Key takeaways from this episode
- ### Head Injuries and Concussions Are Destroying Mental Health
- Understanding the diverse symptoms of a concussion and how they can manifest.
- The "cascade effect" and how it impacts the body after a head injury.
- The significance of the injury's location within the brain and its specific effects.
- Recognizing and addressing "brain fog" as a serious symptom that shouldn't be ignored.
Pull quotes
Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems.
Nick and Dr. **Unknown:** Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine, to learn about what the limitations are with testing, and what you can do to start your health journey.
So this topic is very, very dear to my heart. **Unknown:** One of, you know, the people that I get to spend my life with, as well as work side by side with at IWG is Dr.
Transcript
**Unknown:** I been up all night, no sleep. Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems. Dive into Integrative Wellness Radio with Dr. Nick and Dr.
**Unknown:** Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine, to learn about what the limitations are with testing, and what you can do to start your health journey. Sometimes I tend to lose myself when I'm out here on my own. Hello, hello, everyone. So this topic is very, very dear to my heart.
**Unknown:** One of, you know, the people that I get to spend my life with, as well as work side by side with at IWG is Dr. Nick, and he, uh, has... I have first hand experienced many, many concussions and brain injuries that he has gone through. The total number of head injuries that he has had has been thirteen concussions at this point in time.
**Unknown:** So being able to see his journey and also the lack of knowledge there was about concussions and traumatic brain injuries and also the mismanagement of these specific conditions, uh, has been something I've definitely dealt with first hand. So tonight is really helping you guys to understand, you know, some of the things that are now coming to light about this specific condition and how it is creating a lot of aftermath and how it's actually playing a significant role in a lot of these conditions that we are seeing become more and more prominent, like dementia, Alzheimer's, and even Parkinson's. So really my goal for tonight is to give you guys information and give you tools so that we can start managing concussions and, uh, brain injuries better, and we can also acknowledge the signs and symptoms that there might be something going on. Because this is not necessarily about a person losing their memory within the moment or even having a terrible headache or, or having that, you know, that repeat, their brain on repeat saying, you know, "How did this happen?
**Unknown:** How did I get here?" Those are all very dramatic symptoms that come from a severe head injury, but what we need to be more knowledg-knowledgeable about is the mild head injuries and how we can start to see symptoms even weeks later. So as we dive in tonight, I'm going to help you guys understand more about the specific signs and symptoms, number one. Number two is I'm gonna help introduce you guys to better testing, better therapies, and also better ways to really evaluate yourself or even your children in different changes that start to happen in their personality or even their behaviors, and how this might indicate that they have residual damage from their head injury. This is more so helping you to understand what does the aftermath look like that you could be better equipped to understand what residually is happening from these head injuries opposed to thinking, "My kid's just depressed," or, "I just have anxiety," or, "I just have insomnia now." So first and foremost, when we get into this topic, there are parents that are here that are listening, and they're probably gonna start thinking like, "Oh my gosh, I'm a bad parent.
**Unknown:** I can't believe I didn't know this. I can't believe I ignored my kid's symptoms." And I just want you to understand is, like, that's not the place to be from right now. This is not about going into this I shoulda, coulda, woulda, because you don't know what you don't know, and it is impossible for you to be able to navigate the sea of information that is online. There is so much mixed information.
**Unknown:** There is mixed information that you are getting from doctors, neurologists, et cetera, and it's really just about understanding the big picture of how this works, and tonight is the night that you will be able to walk away with peace of mind, number one, but number two is also being able to be better equipped to be in the driver's seat. So a couple of things that I think a lot of people don't know. So number one is symptoms of a concussion or aftermath of a concussion can actually set in weeks after the head injury, and this could look like brain fog. It can look like ADD.
**Unknown:** It can look like insomnia or poor sleep. It can look like gut issues. It can look like hormonal imbalance, loss of a period for a female. It can look like any of those things.
**Unknown:** In addition, when we're thinking about head injuries, we're thinking about contact to the head. We're not always thinking about car accidents. Uh, so many people are just like, "Yeah, I've had car accidents. It was minor fender bender." And then when you start asking better questions, they're like, "Oh yeah, it was fifteen miles an hour, twenty miles an hour, thirty miles an hour, but I was fine.
**Unknown:** I didn't go to the hospital." It only takes five miles an hour of impact for, to create soft tissue damage. So when we're talking about head injuries that can cause different changes in our mental health, yes, it could be impact to the actual head, but it also can be compromised issues from a whiplash or a, some type of neck injury which can come from either a car accident or some other type of contact injury. In addition, we've already kind of said this, is that head injuries can cause a lot of different issues in organs that nobody is thinking about, and it's because you have this control center that is communicating down to a variety of organs. And one of the specific nerves that we're gonna talk about tonight is the vagus nerve and how that nerve specifically controls your heart rate.
**Unknown:** It controls your gut. It controls your respiratory rate. So when you start having gut issues after a head injury or you start having heart palpitations or you start having shortness of breath, this doesn't mean that you have a lung issue. This doesn't mean you have a heart issue.
**Unknown:** It doesn't even mean you have a gut issue. It means that you potentially have a vagus nerve issue that can come from the neck. It can also come from the head. The other big thing, too, is that you can have a head injury that creates damage to the barrier around your brain.
**Unknown:** This barrier is called the blood-brain barrier, and that barrier keeps all the bad-Bad stuff out. It keeps the toxins out of the brain, it keeps the infections out of the brain. For those of you new to this world, you might be thinking like, "H- why do we have exposure to toxins?" Or, "Why do we get exposure to infections?" You literally get exposed to these types of organisms all the time, and it's really you have an immune system, and you have this barrier around your brain in order to prevent anything from bad to get in. But when you have enough head injuries, you can actually start to have issues with the barrier around the brain that will actually allow for these infections and toxins to start creating bigger problems.
**Unknown:** So here's the breakdown of the cascade effect. So literally we have the brain injury, then we have vascular issues that happen from there. These vascular issues actually create the breakdown of the blood-brain barrier, and then from there, we start to have issues with how well the blood is flowing in and the blood is flowing out. Just a disclaimer for you guys, what that looks like is headaches, migraines.
**Unknown:** It also starts to look like brain fog, memory loss. They're all of these things that so many of us are dealing with, and we are just not even connecting the dots because nobody is helping us to connect the dots. So in addition to that is when we start to have this breakdown of the blood-brain barrier, like I said before, is this is when we have more susceptibility to certain viruses or even bacterias to start affecting the brain in a negative way. And this is definitely one of the big things that makes us susceptible to these autoimmune brain conditions like multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, and even Alzheimer's and dementia.
**Unknown:** So we are living in a world right now that we're being told that we have no idea why these conditions exist. We have no idea why Parkinson's develops. We have no idea why people are getting Alzheimer's when there is so much data and so much literature out there really correlating these conditions back to infections, autoimmune conditions, toxins, and head injuries, and more than that as well. So when we start to really understand the myths around these brain conditions and why we feel like we don't know what to do, we don't know how to handle them.
**Unknown:** So number one is that we assume that you or your child or whoever has had this head injury has had the best testing. We just assume that. We did all the neurological tests proper. We also had MRIs or CT scans to rule out anything serious, and that if the doctor says everything is good, then everything is good.
**Unknown:** And really what it comes down to is there has been no standard for how to do testing to properly evaluate for concussions or the residual effects of concussions or what we call post-concussive syndrome. And this is just crazy to me that there's still to this day is really no standard. You know, they're, they're definitely asking questions and really evaluating the mental status of the person. Then they're starting to look at, you know, the movements of the eyes.
**Unknown:** They're evaluating the soft tissue. You know, was there any type of contusions or inflammation? And then we're doing CT scans to check for a brain bleed, and we might be doing an MRI as well. So really what happens from here is that if everything checks out, then we assume that everything is okay, and there's usually not a follow-up afterwards.
**Unknown:** So when it really comes to the testing that is necessary to be done, and for those of you that are like, "Who does this testing?" There is a world in this integrative and holistic medicine world called functional neurology. And functional neurology, there's a variety of different ways to do it. But in our practice, when we're evaluating for concussion and in correlation to, uh, post-concussive issues or even how this is affecting someone's mental health, we're looking at very, very strategic neurological tests. Everything from a test called Rombergs, which is evaluating your balance, coordination.
**Unknown:** It's evaluating how well your brain is talking to your body. We're looking at your tracking of your eyes. We're testing the cranial nerves. We're testing the constriction of your eyes.
**Unknown:** We're testing your reflexes. We're literally testing for the intracranial pressure in your head. We're testing for your hearing. We're testing for your sense of touch.
**Unknown:** We're testing every aspect of the neurological system to see is there something that is not firing properly that is causing this person to potentially start to have anxiety, depression, memory loss, brain fog, et cetera. So interesting enough is that there are also blood markers that can be extremely helpful when you're trying to evaluate does a person have damage to their blood-brain barrier in the current moment, or do they have damage to their blood-brain barrier, uh, post-concussion or post-traumatic brain injury? And what's interesting is in the early stages of my practice, I actually learned about these markers being markers for mold exposure. And really what I, I learned over time is that these markers really are markers that dictate, uh, a lot of inflammation, and they dictate damage to con- or tight junctions as well as damage to the vascular system.
**Unknown:** So when it comes to this specific marker, these are accessible by the way through like LabCorp and Quest. These are not even fancy tests that you have to, uh, outsource through a private lab. But MMP and VEGF are two markers that can actually help us indicate is there issues with the blood-brain barrier, um, that is causing inflammation and destruction to the junctions. AKA, what that means is that the blood-brain barrier is damaged, and that means things that should not be able to get into the brain can now get into the brain.
**Unknown:** And what that makes us susceptible to is viruses, infections, fungus, things that we do not want affecting our neurological system. It allows them to get in and cause problems. So in addition to that is we have another marker called TGF beta one. Again, we can get this simply through LabCorp or Quest.
**Unknown:** And this is another marker that is actually dictating if there is going to be vascular wall damage that could be affecting the blood-brain barrier. So really just to keep this super simple is these markers are dictating is there inflammation in the brain, number one. Number two, is there issues with how well the blood is flowing in and the blood is flowing out? Because the vascular system of your brain does two things.
**Unknown:** The arteries bring the blood in, which is gonna help your brain get glucose, fuel. It's gonna help it also get oxygen. Then you have your veins, your venous system that drains the bad stuff away from the brain. So that is the part of the like immune system of the brain that's gonna get rid of toxins.
**Unknown:** It's gonna get rid of any infections that your brain might be stressed by. So once we start compromising the brain's ability to bring the blood in and out, we start to have a lot of problems. And guys, the first sign is brain fog.How many of you are struggling with your brain every day? How many of you wake up, you're like, "Don't even talk to me.
**Unknown:** I can't even function. I need coffee first"? So by the way, the reason why that helps you is because coffee is going to dilate your blood vessels, and it's actually going to bring more, more oxygen to the brain, but it's short-lived and it's temporary. So what that's showing you is that you already have issues with how well the circulation of your brain is actually working.
**Unknown:** So one of the biggest misconceptions is that there's no damage to your brain with a mild concussion or even a mild car accident. And when they started to actually do better testing on this, what they actually realized is that any patient who had a concussion had significant amounts or significant loss of gray and white matter of the brain. So gray and white matter, there-- this is some of the associations with conditions like Alzheimer's, dementia, and even multiple sclerosis. So when you start to have damage to the gray and white matter, you start to have issues with how well your brain is communicating left to right, right to left, and also how well your brain is communicating top down.
**Unknown:** And the more compromised those structures become, your brain starts to shrink, and you start to have very serious conditions that cause you to lose your memory, um, they cause you to not be able to speak properly, they cause you to not be able to see properly. It really starts to compromise almost all of your senses. So this is probably one of the most fascinating parts of the presentation because this is going to allow us to really understand the location of the injury is important. So a lot of times we're not even considering where did you hit your head because your brain has a bunch of different centers, they're called lobes, and these lobes all do different things.
**Unknown:** So you have more than these three lobes that I've listed, but I'm gonna keep it as simple as possible because most people are hitting the front of their head, which is the frontal lobe, and then most other people are hitting the back of their head, which is your occipital lobe, but also your cerebellum. So let's kinda break this down, and I'm gonna help you guys understand what do these symptoms actually look like. So first and foremost, the frontal lobe of the brain. Some of the characteristics with the frontal lobe being damaged in a person is they have an inability to c- to commit.
**Unknown:** I don't mean like boyfriend/girlfriend status all the time . I mean like they also... They change jobs a lot. They, um, they're, they're not gonna be able to commit to even, like, going to dinner.
**Unknown:** Like, they have a lot of trouble with commitment, not necessarily just from a relationship standpoint. But they also have a lot of impulsive behaviors. They have a tendency to gamble. They'll do extreme sports.
**Unknown:** They like to speed when they drive. They're constantly getting speeding tickets. They'll make really risky financial moves. They'll, like, put all their money in one stock and hope for the best.
**Unknown:** But in addition, they can also start to have depression as well. So when you start to have the impulsivity and the depression, when you start to see the big, uh, seesaw, that's when you start to see more of the bipolar behaviors. But in addition, there are some things that you can also see if the frontal lobe is degenerating. So one of the questions I ask my patients is, "Do you have sloppy handwriting?
**Unknown:** Has it gotten worse over time?" And some of them are like, "Well, it's always been sloppy," so that's pretty normal. But if they're like, "Oh, yeah, it's significantly gotten worse over time," and it's also very small when they write, this is a sign that the frontal lobe is damaged and degenerating. In addition is that they maybe used to be more reserved, and now they're gambling a lot, and now they're having mood swings, and now they're feeling, like, the impulses to cheat on their spouse, and then they're also feeling depressed about their behaviors. So these are some of the specific things that can happen way, way, way, way later down the line after having a frontal head injury.
**Unknown:** And the other thing too is that, you know, we have this epidemic of ADD and ADHD. And, like, first and foremost, one of the things that I think that a lot of parents need to understand is that the frontal lobe takes longer for males or young boys to develop. In addition to that, most of your kids are eating a boatload of sugar and crap, and it's because of the marketing, you know? Your kids know McDonald's before you've ever taken them there, and it's because it's all over TV, and their friends are eating it and everything else.
**Unknown:** So there is a lot of issues when it comes to the frontal lobe and blood sugar. If your kids have this rollercoaster ride of blood sugar or you have a rollercoaster ride of blood sugar because you eat tons of carbs and you eat tons of junk and you eat sugar on top of that, then you're also going to see more of a tendency for these behaviors in addition to your kids having the ADD and A- ADHD. So this is not about running to the drugs. This is about evaluating, okay, did I give my young son or boy enough time to develop or for that part of his brain to develop before I really dictate if this is truly a pathology or not?
**Unknown:** And also, is my kid eating a boatload of crap that's creating really bad blood sugar, which is then cascading into what we presume to be ADD and ADHD? So some of the other big things too is that obviously when we're going into this ADD, ADHD world, we're starting to then stimulate the nervous system through, uh, different types of drugs. And the big thing that you have to understand is that the longer these drugs are used, the more we compromise the brain's ability to produce dopamine on its own. Dopamine is our feel-good hormone.
**Unknown:** So then when your child eventually tries to come off of these medications, they're going to have a lot of issues with addiction or even different types of vices. And this could be exercise, or it could be cigarettes, or it could be wine, or it could be other things. So when we start using these medications at really young ages, we actually manipulate the brain chemistry, and w- we actually change-The, the blueprint of the brain, and we actually create deficiencies that will then affect us and manifest differently later in life. So the back of the brain is what we call the occipital lobe.
**Unknown:** So one of the biggest things about the occipital lobe is its core-- it's tied to vision. So when I talk to patients, I'm constantly asking them about their vision. And by the way, if you guys want a podcast specifically about vision and the brain, we just did a podcast called Bad Vision Equals a Bad Brain, because we're dealing with... You know, people just expect that their eyes are going to decline and degenerate, and then also when a child, you know, at one, two years old is already in need for glasses, you know, we're just being like, "Oh, it's genetic, they just have bad eyes," and we're not actually considering, is this from a head injury?
**Unknown:** Is this because they hit the back of their head? Is it because they had a flat spot on the back of their head when they were born and had to wear a helmet? Is it for any of those reasons? So when we're talking about the back of the brain, this is going to be visual.
**Unknown:** This is not just about are you blurry, are you farsighted, are you nearsighted? This is also about do you have to wear sunglasses when you're outside? Do you have issues with determining navy versus black? Do you have issues with shapes?
**Unknown:** Do you stare at something, like stripes or some type of pattern that eventually makes your eyes really hurt? Do your eyes get strained really easily when you're on the computer? And I mean like for a half an hour. If you're on the computer for eight hours, your eyes are gonna be strained, so that is pretty normal.
**Unknown:** So it's not just about do you need glasses, but are you color blind to some capacity? Are you really sensitive to the sunshine? Are you having trouble with distinguishing shapes, colors, things like that? These are all things to look for, of did that head injury actually create more of a residual effect, but it's presenting as a visual issue.
**Unknown:** The other thing too to consider is ocular migraines, like a lot of pain behind the eye, and that the, the headaches or the migraines always look like that. So those are definitely some things to consider. But in addition, when you hit the back of the head, you always have the probability that you start to compromise not just the visual centers through the occipital lobe, but you can also compromise what is called the cerebellum. So the cerebellum has a lot to do with balance and coordination.
**Unknown:** So if you feel that you used to be really balanced, but now you're having trouble doing yoga, you're having trouble standing on one leg, you can't pass a DUI test sober, you can't walk on a balance beam with your eyes open. If you can't do those things, then you have something going on with your cerebellum. In addition to that, your cerebellum works directly with your inner ear. So if you have vertigo, balance issues, if you have dizziness, if you have any of those types of issues going on that...
**Unknown:** and you're, you keep trying to address the ear, the ear, the ear, then chances are you might actually be dealing with a cerebellum issue, because they communicate with each other. So these are all things that are really, really important to evaluate. So again, can you stand on one leg? Have you had bouts of vertigo?
**Unknown:** Are you dizzy? Do you get nauseous staring at patterns or being in a moving vehicle? Are you nauseous on a boat? Do you have ear problems, including stuffy ears or loss of hearing?
**Unknown:** And then when the cerebellum becomes really compromised, that's when you're gonna start to see some type of tremor, especially when you go to grab something. A lot of people think it's blood sugar. It's not blood sugar. It could easily be degeneration of the cerebellum.
**Unknown:** So again, I'm doing this because I want you guys to be able to see these signs and symptoms, because these things are overlooked. "Oh, she's just clumsy. Oh, w- I had vertigo one time. No big deal.
**Unknown:** Oh, I have motion sickness. I just take, you know, my Dramamine and I'm good." These are all signs that your brain is not working properly. So the big thing too is that when we talk about the residual effects of a concussion, we're not really just even talking about damage to the blood-blood-brain barrier. We're also talking about serious ramifications from adrenaline output.
**Unknown:** So when there is some type of head injury or concussion, usually this is going to be attached to something traumatic. Like in, in that moment of hitting your head playing sports, hockey, football, snowboarding, whatever, you're usually scared in a moment, and that outputs a crap ton of adrenaline. Adrenaline puts your body into what we call sympathetic mode.Which is fight or flight. Literally, your body thinks, "I'm in the woods about to fight a tiger or run." And what happens from there is that now that adrenaline creates a memory, and that memory will live in your tissues.
**Unknown:** And now, so not only do you have an issue with the damage, the physical damage that has happened from this head injury, but now some people get into this adrenaline overload or this sympathetic fight or flight state, and they can't get out of it. And now they lose their libido, their hormones are off. Men will have erectile dysfunction. They're, they're going to literally start having memory issues.
**Unknown:** They're gonna maybe be lashing out, get angry. They're not gonna be sleeping, and they're going to have no idea why. And it has so much to do with being stuck in this fight or flight adrenaline state. But the thing that I want you guys to understand about this too is that when your body gets into this fight or flight state, what's gonna happen from here is that there's gonna be that like moment in time when you go...
**Unknown:** 'Cause I hear it all the time from my patients, and they were like, "I just don't know what happened, like everything fell apart one day. I just woke up and everything was, was bad. Like, I, I couldn't think anymore. I couldn't get out of bed.
**Unknown:** I was so tired. I couldn't function, and I was healthy. I was healthy. I don't understand what happened to me." And what happens is that there are, there are problems.
**Unknown:** There are problems in the back- in the background, but the symptoms are not severe enough for us to know there's a problem, and then it just takes the one thing. It takes the one fight with our spouse. It takes the one, you know, fight with our boss. It takes the one bad strep throat.
**Unknown:** It takes the one bad sinus infection, the one bad stomach flu, and that just takes you completely over the edge, and it takes you over the edge because your body has already been in that fight or flight for a while, and you were a ticking time bomb. And trust me, I know this very well because it was me. I was burnt to a crisp, running on adrenaline for probably fifteen years, and this was... Well, I did have a head injury, so it was, that was just one layer to the fact of how imbalanced my life was with just literally burning the candle at both ends.
**Unknown:** And it took one bad flu that I literally was just could barely function anymore. And it's just important for you guys that nothing just comes out of nowhere. There, there's always things that are brewing, and it just takes that one thing that's gonna take it over the edge. So when we really start to understand this, this issue with the blood-brain barrier.
**Unknown:** So like I've said, for those of you that are just hopping on, is that the blood-brain barrier, once it becomes damaged, like it's a shit show. I'm gonna just be like black and white. This means that you have no protection and that infections, toxins, fungus, all the bad stuff can now get into your brain and cause a boatload of problems. That's number one.
**Unknown:** Number two is when your blood-brain barrier is compromised, you're also gonna have a lot of issues with cell to cell communication. So that means your left side of your brain is not talking to the right side of your brain, vice versa. It means your brain is not talking to your muscles, it's not talking to your joints, it's not talking to your liver, it's not talking to your gut. Nothing is talking to each other properly.
**Unknown:** And then guess what happens? You're tired. You can't think straight unless you have caffeine. You're starting to become addicted to different substances that start to boost those feel-good hormones temporarily.
**Unknown:** You start to become depressed. You become anxious. Then you become bipolar. Then you develop early onset dementia, and then you have Alzheimer's, and then you have Parkinson's.
**Unknown:** Like, it's literally a cascade effect that happens over years upon years upon years upon years. But you guys need to stop just dismissing your brain fog. You need to stop dismissing your short-term memory loss. You need to stop dismissing those things 'cause they are all significant.
**Unknown:** So this is kind of what I'm saying is this is really just showing you that your eyes, your brain, your ears, any way that you receive information that is coming in through the senses, then that is going to be compromised. So your eyes are not gonna talk to your brain properly. When you get things through your ears, that's not gonna communicate properly. So you start to notice it with kids.
**Unknown:** Like they're in school, they're like, "I can't listen. I can't pay attention." Or you start to see them, they're reading a book, they have to read the same page like four times 'cause they can't comprehend. Another thing too is for those of you that are like new to this world of blood-brain barrier and probably are just like, "Does the blood-brain barrier really could become compromised from head injuries? Like is that even possible?
**Unknown:** And how do you test for that?" There is a test for it, and I have it here because there is a specific lab that is pioneering in the world of neurological testing through blood work, and they are actually evaluating for the blood-brain barrier and to see if it is actually disrupted and compromised. So if you or your child has had three, four concussions, get this test done because if it's something that is early onset, you can actually deal with it. So now there's not bigger issues down the line because this is something that is actually fixable with the right tools. But most people don't even know that this is a possibility.
**Unknown:** So another thing that I've mentioned so far is that your head injuries, that when you have a head injury, it's not gonna actually compromise how well your brain is functioning. And just so you guys understand is that your brain actually detoxes, and it has its own special way of detoxing. So when all of you go to sleep and get tired, that's because at night, your melatonin starts to go up. So what a lot of people haven't realized is that melatonin is not just about sleep, it's actually the master detoxifier of your brain and body.
**Unknown:** So this is one of the reasons why melatonin is going up at night, is to get you sleepy, get you to bed to help your body detox and repair while you sleep. So melatonin serves many purposes. But when you have a head injury, the ability for your brain to make melatonin, number one, and also how well the blood flow and the cerebral spinal fluid flow, all of that becomes compromised and especially becomes more and more compromised the more head injuries that are there. But guys, what is-This look like this looks like bloodshot eyes.
**Unknown:** This looks like migraines behind the eye or headaches behind the eye. This is tension. Everyone's, oh, sinus tension. It's not sinus pressure.
**Unknown:** It's not sinus tension. Half of the time it's your brain and the pressure in your head, the blood pressure in your head being so high. It's also brain fog. It's also depression.
**Unknown:** It's also anxiety, and it's also memory loss. It starts with short-term. If you are a person that already has long-term memory loss, that is the progression. What that means is your brain is further degenerated.
**Unknown:** Short-term goes first, long-term goes, goes second. So when we say this term sinuses, all of you think about breathing, but what you don't realize is that you have sinuses all through your head, and these sinuses are there to allow for us to have this fluid around our brains to drain the bad stuff away. In addition, the same exact company that is actually testing for the damage in the blood-brain barrier, this is also the same test that they are using in order to evaluate for specific viruses in the brain. This is something that I'm running regularly on patients, um, or especially my younger demographic that are coming in with their ADD, ADHD, even Crohn's disease because the brain plays such a significant role in the gut, and it's definitely one of the biggest viruses that I see in children's brains is HSV-1.
**Unknown:** So for those of you... Some of you know what that is, some of you don't. HSV-1 is cold sores. That's the herpes simplex virus one that is associated with cold sores.
**Unknown:** So when you or your kids are getting tons of cold sores and you're thinking, "Oh, it's just a skin issue," think about most of the cold sores are on the face in the mouth. Think about how close that is to your brain. There are many, many kids that have this in their brain, and they're being told that they have depression, they have anxiety, they have, uh, PANDAS, they have sleep issues, and it's a virus. So I've already kind of mentioned this, but when we have these brain injuries, we start to compromise our neurological threshold.
**Unknown:** So like I said before, is we start to have this PTSD type of reaction because we output all of this adrenaline in the event of the injury, and then from there, we take-- it takes the one stressor that's the straw that broke the camel's back. But in addition to that, when we have this threshold being compromised, we actually start to compromise our sodium potassium pump. So just to keep this super simple is what's gonna happen is your brain is not gonna get fuel, and your brain is gonna become very, very sluggish. So it's kind of mind-blowing because...
**Unknown:** So what's gonna happen here is that we have a lot of patients we do testing when we actually test for what types of supplements are best for them, and when we test our patients that have dealt with, uh, traumatic brain injuries or they're dealing with even brain fog or memory loss or things like that, they're always, always, always testing for something called bio cell salts. So bio cell salts are a specific fuel to the brain to help to correct the problems with the sodium potassium pump, and it is like clockwork that people are testing for this to be a positive to help their brain. So when you have traumatic brain injuries, it's almost guaranteed that you're gonna have an issue with the sodium potassium pump, which again, all that that means is that your brain is not getting fuel properly. The other thing about this is this is not just about sodium, AKA salt.
**Unknown:** This is also about sugar. Your brain does run on glucose. This is not an excuse for you guys to go eat cheesecake tonight, by the way, 'cause it's not how it works. But when you get glucose from the proper sources, and also your body can use sugar properly, then what's gonna happen here is that you're gonna be able to give your brain proper fuel.
**Unknown:** But what they've actually proven at this point is that brain injuries will actually compromise how well your brain can use the glucose. So AKA, it is a massive, massive, massive struggle for your brain to get fuel and to communicate properly with your body, with your eyes, with your ears, with all of your senses. So everything starts to become more and more diminished. So I wanna talk about this vagus nerve as well because there is a huge epidemic of a condition called POTS syndrome right now.
**Unknown:** POTS syndrome is postural orthostatic hypertension. So all that this means is that... Or I should give you the symptoms. So some of the symptoms that are happening with this POTS syndrome is lightheaded, dizziness.
**Unknown:** People are actually, a lot of females mainly, are doing better. They have to lay. They c-- they have to be in a horizontal position 'cause as soon as they become vertical, their blood pressure drops so severely that they complete-- they can lose vision, they can faint. Those are obviously the more extreme cases.
**Unknown:** POTS syndrome has to do with two things. Dysautonomia, meaning that your autonomic n-nervous system is stressed. Guess what, guys? All that adrenaline that we're talking about, that fight or flight that people get stuck in after head injuries, that is what's gonna screw up your autonomic nervous system.
**Unknown:** Number two is if you hit your head, especially the back of the head, if you whiplash your neck in a car accident, then chances are you can also have a vagus nerve issue, and the vagus nerve is going to play a significant role in POTS syndrome or fainting or low blood pressure. And the reason being is because the vagus nerve comes from the head and the neck, and then it innervates your lungs, it innervates your heart, and it also innervates your gastrointestinal system. So what starts to happen is that you become constipated, but no matter what you do will act-- no, no matter what gut protocol you do, it doesn't help. SoThe gut protocols are not working because it's not a gut problem, it's a brain problem.
**Unknown:** And then in addition, you might notice that the person's pupils are always dilated, or they start to have heart palpitations or heart arrhythmia, or they start to have shortness of breath. Um, and I'm talking about like they go up a flight of stairs, and they're like, and they're thinking they have a lung issue, when really it's the control center issue. So this is something that we really need to look out for in the event that somebody has dealt with a head injury. Some of the other really interesting things too, which so many of you and so many people you know are dealing with, is GERD, reflux, indigestion, heartburn.
**Unknown:** So one of the things the vagus nerve does is it helps your stomach make acid. So by the way, most of reflux and heartburn is made from... is due to lack of acid. If you wanna learn more about that, I would definitely watch one of the other webinars that I did on the gut modules.
**Unknown:** If you actually log into our webinar archive on our website, you can get access to any of those, 'cause that's a whole topic in itself. But when you have a vagus nerve issue, it's not talking to the stomach, you're not making proper acid, and then you're going to start to have reflux. In addition, it can also mess up your gallbladder. So now you're having a lot of gurgling, you're having issues with how well you're breaking down fats.
**Unknown:** Um, you start to have poor liver detoxification, and then you start to become constipated. So these are all things that if you've tried, you've gone to cardiologists to deal with your heart palpitations, you've gone to gastroenterologists to deal with your chronic constipation, you've gone to gastroenterologists because of your GERD and your reflux, and it's not getting better, you need to look at the nervous system and the vagus nerve function because chances are that is part of the puzzle. By the way, if you want a simple way to know if your vagus nerve is working is... 'cause it's, it's not one or the other, it could be either extreme, is either you have a really active gag reflex, like you smell something bad and you gag, or you have zero gag reflex.
**Unknown:** So if you brush your teeth and you hit the back of your throat and you're like, "Nope, didn't gag at all," either one of those extremes is showing you a compromised vagus nerve. So I've mentioned in this so far that head injuries can, can create an issue with the control center of the gut. So not only can head injuries compromise the vagus nerve, which will then potentially lead you down a road of chronic constipation, but in addition to that is that it can actually compromise the junctions on your gut. So this is what leads to what we call leaky gut, and leaky gut is, you know, a whole topic in itself.
**Unknown:** But the biggest thing that I want you guys to understand about leaky gut is that every time you eat food, you're being exposed to bacteria, you're being exposed to parasites, you're being exposed to toxins, pesticides, herbicides. You're being exposed to tons of stuff. We all are. But your gut and your body is super intelligent, and it was designed perfectly to protect us.
**Unknown:** But if you have head injuries, then you can start to have a compromised barrier on your gut, which if that becomes compromised, now all of those little fun critters and toxins escape from the gut and get into your bloodstream. And then they get into your bloodstream, and they make you inflamed. They make you more susceptible to autoimmune conditions, especially inflammatory autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, and fibromyalgia, and even thyroid conditions. Really, it can trigger a variety of negative immune responses which then lead to autoimmune conditions.
**Unknown:** In addition to this is that this will start to compromise your serotonin production, 'cause most of your serotonin is made in your gut. So now you have a double whammy. You start to have gut issues, which lead to potential inflammatory issues, which potentially leads to autoimmune conditions, and then on top of it you're depressed because your gut can't make serotonin. So again, we need to really understand the signs and symptoms here so that we can better equipped ourselves to resolve these things.
**Unknown:** The other thing too is that most of our kids are going home after a head injury being, you know, being cleared by the doctor, and then they're sitting in front of TV or they're putting their... They're sleeping with their cell phone next to their head or they're playing video games because they feel fine. And what we don't realize is that not only is the radiation from those devices creating problems in itself, but secondary to that, all of the blue light that comes in through the visual centers is actually compromising the brain's ability to make melatonin, which doesn't allow it to detox, and it doesn't allow the brain to repair. I don't care if it was the most minor bump on the head that your kid like literally was, you know, had a bump from the monkey bars.
**Unknown:** Like every head injury needs to be tended to properly. And even if it is minor and there's no reason to go to the hospital, don't let your kid go home and just sit in front of a blue light device like a cell phone or an iPad, because that is just going to be one extra thing that is not gonna allow them to heal properly. And also for you ladies that are listening, blue light damages your skin. So if you're like spending all the money on facials and all those things to...
**Unknown:** and Botox, try just like putting a blue light blocker on your cell phone, and you'll probably notice your skin gets better. So there are obviously solutions when it comes to actually helping the brain from a preventative standpoint. Obviously a lot of the things that we talked about tonight is really after the fact. But when it comes to being preventative is even supplements like turmeric, curcumin, magnesium, BioCell salts, and high dose omega-3s are extremely beneficial at protecting the brain.
**Unknown:** So if you are working with injuries or, I'm, I'm sorry, you're working with athletes, like your kids are playing hockey, they're playing football, or they're playing these sports, then you really want to make sure that they are at least on some type of supplementation that is going to build better or healthier tissue in the brain that could actually act as a protective mechanism. So I'm not gonna sit here and say that every supplement is created equal. There are, there are so many, so many, so many variables. Please don't go cheap because when you go cheap with supplements, they actually can become more compromising.
**Unknown:** Like omega-3s from Costco, guys, don't do it. Like you don't need, first of all, the, uh, family pack that's gonna last one year because it goes bad. Number two is thatWhen you get into supplements, very much follow the rule, if it's expensive, it's better. Unless you come to us and we actually will take all of that out, and we will make sure that you get...
**Unknown:** the only supplements you get have been tested, and they actually resonate with your body. So just know that, guys. Because there are many, many people that have wasted a lot of money on supplements, and I know for myself, at one point in time, I had twenty-five thousand dollars sitting in a cabinet in my, in my house because it was trial and error, trial and error, trial and error. And then when we started to leverage better testing, we realized you can actually test to know what supplements are best for that person for the problems they're dealing with.
**Unknown:** And once you're able to hone in on that, first of all, you see the person get better faster, but you also see them not waste any money on supplements that are not good for them. So just know that you can get extremely personalized when you leverage better approaches. So this is actually from one of actually our professors from when we were in school, and, um, she is a functional neurology doctor, and she was really bringing some great research to the table. But I think it was just...
**Unknown:** I wanted to put this in here because I want you guys to understand that there are so many things that can be done even after the fact of a brain injury. So if you or your child have had just, like, a mild brain injury or head injury, and it was... there was no need for hospitalization, there was no concussion, you know, still being able to get some type of physical or manual therapy. Get checked by a chiropractor, get checked by a vestibular specialist, get checked by someone who knows how to help those structures in order to make sure that you don't have problems down the line.
**Unknown:** Functional neurology chiropractors, sports chiropractors are literally the best for these types of issues. In addition to that is if you have already started to have symptoms, maybe you have symptoms because... or with vertigo, dizziness, maybe you're having visual issues, maybe you're having other types of sensory issues. That's really when you want to go into more specific types of therapies like functional neurology, which is something that we offer at Integrative Wellness Group.
**Unknown:** A lot of people don't even know what that means. They've never heard of functional neurology, and it's really the, the simplest way I can put it is it's leveraging better, more precise neurological testing so that you can pinpoint, is there damage from the head injury? Is there residual damage, or is there risk for residual damage? And how can we either buffer the current symptoms or negate any potential symptoms from coming down the line?
**Unknown:** So I hope at this point in time that you guys are h- like, "Holy hell, I had no idea about any of this," but this is useful because this information is just something that I feel like is not being brought to the forefront. There's still not great preventative therapies that are being offered to our young kids that are playing sports, and we're also seeing so many of these NFL players and NHL players that are completely debilitated by the time they're in their late thirties, and we need to put a stop to it. So I think that we really need to understand that this is not about bad genes. This is not about bad luck.
**Unknown:** There are no genes that predispose you to having concussions. There are no genes that predispose you to Alzheimer's. I should rephrase that. There are definitely going to be some types of predispositions, but your genes express differently based off of lifestyle, infections, your stress level, how many head injuries you've had.
**Unknown:** They will express differently based off of your situation, based off of all of those other factors. So even someone like my husband, who has had thirteen concussions, he is still highly functioning. He did the Neural Zoomer Plus, which is the test that I showed you guys, and his brain is better than most people. He had no infections, he had no autoimmune markers, and this is a guy who's had tremendous trauma.
**Unknown:** But he has leveraged the tools that we use at Integrative Wellness Group in order to get his brain back to where it needed to be and to really just decrease inflammation as a whole and also to be preventative in the future for any type of activity that he still does. 'Cause he doesn't live in a bubble now. He's still doing the things that he loves. He's snowboarding, he's rock climbing, he's doing all of those things.
**Unknown:** So it's really a matter of, you don't have to live in a bubble becau- and not do the things you love because you're scared of a head injury. So it's really, really important to understand that because one of the things that I advocate for is for people to live a balanced life. Uh, when you come to IWG, we're gonna talk to you about, you know, okay, maybe you should cut out certain foods that are causing more inflammation for your brain right now. But it's not that you're gonna stay on an elimination diet forever, or you're gonna stay on a certain protocol forever.
**Unknown:** It's always to just try to achieve a goal and to get you asymptomatic and also to give you the tools of how are you going to best take care of yourself moving forward. I think so many of us don't gain those tools when we work with doctors. We, we still walk away feeling really reliant. We don't really know, okay, well, how do I take care of myself?
**Unknown:** Um, there will obviously be times when you have to use a doctor and have to consult with a doctor 'cause it's out of your wheelhouse, but you should have a general idea of what your body needs to stay healthy. And I really just, like, for any of you that are still here, just please, please share this with other people because there are a lot of people that are, are dealing with, um, head injuries that are completely transforming their families for the worst. You know, these are, are people that literally feel like they've lost loved ones because these brain injuries have completely transformed their personalities and, and taken away the person that, you know, they married or, or the child that they gave birth to. So I really can't tell you enough of, you know, how much I thank you guys for being here, number one, and number two is just please share this information with people so that they can have access to do this and be able to know that there are options and that they are not powerless.
**Unknown:** So this is, you know, one of my favorite things to do, and this is really an educational experience. Obviously, when you guys have your own testing and you get that clarity and you start to see changes in your own body, that's when be- this becomes truly a breakthrough experience, and I really hope that every single one of you can experience that at some point. But we appreciate you guys being here. We are gonna continue the conversation about mental health and really having you guys understand not just about head injuries, but also how is this social environment and social media and the pressures that this is bringing, how is this affecting us mentally and emotionally, and how is this affecting the youth?
**Unknown:** Um, so this is gonna be some of the topics that we talk about as we move through the month. So definitely share this series with people that you know, and I appreciate you guys being here, and I will see you next week. We thank you for being a listener and subscriber to Integrative Wellness Radio. If you're looking to learn more about Integrative Wellness Group as well as Dr.
**Unknown:** Nick or Dr. Nicole, you can check out integrativewellnessgroup.com. All night, no sleep. 'Cause I feel like I'm always dreaming.
**Unknown:** Wide awake, that's okay
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Integrative You Radio is a root cause medicine and integrative medicine podcast hosted by Dr. Nicole Rivera and Dr. Nick Carruthers — two integrative doctors who build personalized wellness protocols from your DNA, minerals, hormones, gut, and nervous system rather than from a population template. Looking for an integrative doctor who reads your labs together instead of in isolation? This is the show.
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