Follow a healthy brain protocol after a concussion

Medical advice following a concussion is straightforward: Get plenty of rest, avoid stimulating the brain, and don’t return to regular activities until your brain can handle it.

But a concussion is a much bigger deal than people realize, and there is plenty more you can do to improve brain recovery after a concussion.

Lower inflammation after a concussion

Your diet following a concussion is more important than ever before. You want to focus your efforts on reducing inflammation in the brain.

The immune system in the brain is different than the body’s. The body’s immune system has mechanisms to shut off an immune attack when it’s no longer needed.

The brain’s immune system, however, has no off switch. A concussion can result in unchecked inflammation that slows recovery and continues to destroy healthy brain cells long after the concussion.

This is why concussions can increase the risk of gut problems, depression, suicide  brain issues, and other health disorders.

A healthy post-concussion eating plan

Studies have firmly established the link between diet, gut health, and brain health. What you eat after a concussion matters greatly. Here is an overview of brain healing strategies:

Stabilize blood sugar. Blood sugar that is too low or too high inflames the brain. Cut out sugars and starchy carbs and eat frequently enough to keep energy stable (but don’t overeat).

Remove inflammatory foods. Gluten and dairy are inflammatory to the brain in many people. Undiagnosed food intolerances, such as to corn, eggs, soy, or other foods can inflame the brain. MSG and artificial sweeteners are toxic to the brain and should be avoided, too.

Improve gut bacteria diversity. A slew of studies recently established a link between brain health and the bacteria in your gut. Now is the time to build a healthy gut microbiome.

Eat good fats. The brain is made primarily of fat, so it’s important to eat healthy fats such as olive oil, avocado, cold water fish, and nuts and seeds.

Follow an anti-inflammatory autoimmune diet. It’s best to follow the autoimmune diet as it focuses on lowering inflammation and healing the gut, two things that will help heal the brain. Just make sure you eat enough to sustain energy and blood sugar.

This is a general overview of post-concussion nutrition. For more detailed advice, contact my office.

A healthy post-concussion protocol

Fortunately, certain herbal compounds are effective in reducing brain inflammation. They include apigenin, luteolin, baicalein, resveratrol, rutin, catechin, and curcumin.

Nutrients that improve oxygen flow to the brain also aid recovery. They include feverfew, butcher’s broom, ginkgo biloba, huperzine, and vinpocetine.

Additionally, supporting the omega-3 fatty acid DHA and the body’s master oxidant, glutathione, is helpful.

Lifestyle factors that can aid brain recovery include identifying and addressing autoimmune diseases and chronic infections, and stabilizing hormones (especially in perimenopausal or postmenopausal women).

These are some foundations that can make the difference between a downward spiral after a concussion or the beginning to a more brain-healthy way of living.

If your life hasn’t been the same since your concussion, ask my office how we can help.

Got gut problems? The answer could be in your brain

If you have chronic gut problems, you could have a brain problem. This is especially true if you’ve had a head injury or if you also suffer from worsening memory, brain fog, cognitive decline, or other symptoms of poor brain function.

Chronic digestive complaints — indigestion, acid reflux, constipation, burping, gas, bloating, diarrhea, pain, or irritable bowel disorders — are common complaints of a brain that is not functioning well.

The brain gives orders to the gut through the vagus nerve, which then tells the gut to digest food, repair and regenerate the gut lining, push food through the intestines (motility), and many other functions.

When brain function declines, the brain does not give the gut enough input. As a result, constipation, leaky gut, food sensitivities, irritable bowel disorders, and other problems can arise. This is one reason why people with a head injury or dementia have chronic gut complaints.

Exercise the vagus nerve to address gut problems

In functional neurology, we conduct a neurological exam to evaluate areas of the brain that are not functioning well. We then provide activities to activate or dampen different areas of the brain, depending on your needs, to improve function. This in turn improves communication of the vagus nerve with the gut.

Fortunately, you can also work on activating the vagus nerve yourself at home with some very simple daily activities.

Vagus nerve exercises

A few simple tests can tell you if your vagus nerve may not be sufficiently active:

• You don’t have much of a gag reflex; when you say, “ahhh” the uvula (the little punching bag at the back of your throat) does not rise much.
• If you listen to your abdomen with a stethoscope, you hear virtually no rumbling noises — a healthy gut makes intermittent rumbling noises.

Here are some simple exercises to activate the vagus nerve, taken from Dr. Kharrazian’s book, Why Isn’t My Brain Working?:

Gargle vigorously several times a day. Gargling contracts the back of the throat, which activates the vagus nerve. Gargle each drink of a glass of water several times a day. Gargle vigorously and for a good length of time, ideally until your eyes tear (it may take a while to build up to that.)

Sing loudly. If you are alone at home or in the car, spend some time singing as loudly as you can. This also activates the back of the throat and hence the vagus.

Gag. Using a tongue depressor, which you can buy on Amazon, gently press on the back of your tongue to make yourself gag. Please do not poke the back of your throat. Do this several times a day, again, ideally until your eyes tear. Gargling and singing are like sprints for the vagus nerve, whereas gagging is strength training.

Coffee enemas. Please Google instructions for doing a coffee enema or read how in Dr. Kharrazian’s book. Hold the enema solution as long as you can. That, together with compounds in coffee that stimulate nerve receptors, will help activate the vagus nerve.

This is a simple overview of how to improve gut function by activating the brain. For more customized advice, please contact my office.

Restless leg syndrome? Functional neurology can help

Restless leg syndrome is a torturous condition that causes your legs to want to jump up and run away when you want to sleep. They can also itch, burn, or have a creepy-crawly feeling.

Drugs for restless leg syndrome dull the body and brain and don’t address the underlying cause of a condition that affects 5 million adults and 1 million children. Restless leg syndrome occurs in twice as many women than men and increases the risk for chronic disease and early mortality.

Diet and lifestyle links to restless leg syndrome

The cause of restless leg syndrome is different for each person, although it comes down to a few general factors. The first thing to look at is whether brain health is supported through diet and lifestyle:

Blood sugar stability. A diet high in sugars and processed carbs sends blood sugar spiking and crashing. These extreme fluctuations degenerate and inflame the brain, contributing to all manner of brain-based problems, including restless leg syndrome.

Poor gut health. Leaky gut and too many bad gut bacteria profoundly impact brain health.

Food sensitivities. An immune reaction to a food can inflame the brain. Gluten and dairy in particular are inflammatory for many people and can cause the immune system to destroy brain tissue in a neurological autoimmune disorder.

Other metabolic factors that may contribute to restless leg syndrome include poor nutrition, hormone imbalances, autoimmune disease, poor thyroid function, neurotransmitter (brain chemical) activity, and a previous head injury.

Additionally, research shows that iron deficiency as well as magnesium or vitamin D deficiencies may be related to restless leg symptoms.

Functional neurology for restless leg syndrome

If you’ve supported your brain health and still struggle with restless leg syndrome, you may need functional neurology help.

Restless leg syndrome can be traced to the basal ganglia, an area in the brain that governs involuntary movements. For instance, basal ganglia dysfunction also causes tics, spasms, and tremors.

In order for the basal ganglia to function properly, other areas of the brain must “fire” (communicate) sufficiently with the basal ganglia so it can do its job of inhibiting involuntary and repetitive movement.

However, these other areas of the brain may not fire adequately into the basal ganglia due to various reasons, including imbalanced brain development in childhood, brain injury, brain inflammation, brain degeneration, or other glitches in brain circuitry.

In functional neurology, we examine brain function through various tests that evaluate reflexes, movement and balance, responses to stimuli, and how the eyes move — the eyes are a window into how well brain circuitry functions.

Based on these findings, we perform therapeutic exercises in the office and give you techniques to practice at home. These practices activate or dampen different areas of the brain depending on what the basal ganglia needs to function optimally. This approach helps many resolve restless leg symptoms.

This is a very general overview to a complex neurological topic, but gives you a general idea of a non-pharmaceutical way to manage restless leg syndrome. Ask my office for more information.

How PTSD changes the brain to cause symptoms

It’s not uncommon for many people, even doctors, to brush off PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) as a make-believe disorder. But it’s far from the fabricated psychological complaint some make it out to be. Researchers have used brain imaging to discover PTSD causes identifiable changes to the brain.

Though war veterans garner the most attention for PTSD, the disorder also affects those who have suffered childhood abuse, sexual assault, near death experiences, attack, witnessing violence, and other forms of trauma. In fact, more women than men suffer from PTSD.

PTSD causes a wide range of symptoms that are both emotional and physical in nature. It affects the ability of people to develop healthy relationships, grow in life, and meet their needs. People with PTSD often feel drained from constantly having to cope with ongoing and easily triggered fear responses.

PTSD brains structurally different

It’s not an unwillingness to change that anchors PTSD, but rather structural brain changes. PTSD shrinks some areas of the brain while enlarging another, all in a circuitry that keeps the person in a state of constant fear and hyper arousal.

For instance, brain scans show PTSD sufferers have reduced volume in the hippocampus, the area of the brain on either side of the head responsible for learning and memory.

This causes sufferers to have difficulty distinguishing between past and present memories and experience extreme stress in an environment that resembles that of the original trauma.

Another area that shrinks is the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in the inner frontal area of the brain. This area regulates negative emotions in response to stimuli. This explains why PTSD sufferers respond with extreme fear and anxiety to stimuli related to the original trauma.

In the meantime, an area of the brain called the amygdala increases in size and becomes hyperactive with PTSD. The amygdala is in the center of the brain and involved with fear responses. This causes anxiety, extreme stress, and panic in response to stimuli associated with their traumas.

These three areas of the brain form a circuit that, in a healthy brain, is able to respond appropriately to various situations. However, in PTSD, the compromised function of the hippocampus and ventromedial prefrontal cortex fails to adequately dampen an over active amygdala.

The result? A brain that is easily startled and triggered into an over reactive fear response.

Rehabilitating PTSD with functional neurology

Now you can see why PTSD makes a person feel out of control when it comes to fear, turning the nervous system into a prison of almost unending stress that affects almost every aspect of life.

Fortunately, the brain is very responsive to rehabilitation and PTSD sufferers can find considerable relief without drugs.

In functional neurology, we use specific exercises and activities to dampen areas of the brain that are over responsive to stress and stimulate those areas that can help control the fear response. Contact my office for more information.

Sleepy after meals, can’t lose weight, and always hungry?

If you are sleepy after eating, always hungry, and can’t lose weight, you may suffer from insulin resistance, which raises your risk for diabetes. The good news is insulin resistance is often reversible through simple dietary changes.

How do you know if you have insulin resistance? See if any of these symptoms apply to you:

• Fatigue after meals
• General fatigue
• Constant hunger
• Craving for sweets not relieved by eating them
• Must have sweets after meals
• Waist girth equal to or larger than hip girth
• Frequent urination
• Increased appetite and thirst
• Difficulty losing weight
• Migrating aches and pains
• Trouble falling asleep

Why is insulin resistance dangerous?

Insulin resistance, also known as pre-diabetes, is uncomfortable, but it’s also dangerous. It is linked with Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, chronic pain, hormone imbalances, and many other common modern maladies.

But that’s not all. Insulin resistance can also kill your libido and make you chronically tired.

If you’re a woman, insulin resistance causes testosterone to spike so you lose your hair and develop male characteristics. If you’re a man  it raises estrogen levels so you get “moobs” and cry at commercials. These are some pretty undesirable consequences for a sugar habit!

What causes insulin resistance?

The good news and the bad news is insulin resistance is caused by poor diet and lack of exercise. This is bad news because it means giving up some comforts, but it’s good news because it means radically changing your health is highly doable!

A diet high in sugars and carbohydrates—sugars, sweets, sodas, pastries, bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, corn, grains, beans, and other starchy foods —leads to high blood sugar and insulin resistance.

Because high blood sugar is dangerous to the body, the pancreas secretes insulin to lower it. Insulin escorts sugar out of the bloodstream and into the body’s cells. Excess sugar is converted into fat for storage.

When this response happens regularly every day, as it does for millions of Americans, the cells become overwhelmed from the constant bombardment of insulin. In defense, they become resistant to insulin and refuse it entry. Now you have high blood sugar and high insulin in your bloodstream, causing inflammation, throwing off hormone balance, and degenerating the brain.

This is why insulin resistance causes fatigue after meals. The insulin-resistant cells are deprived of glucose for energy, converting all that extra sugar into fat is draining, and the whole process saps brain function.

Many people have both insulin resistance and low blood sugar. This means their energy crashes not only after meals, but between meals too. Either way, stabilizing blood sugar is your key to better health and losing weight.

Reversing insulin resistance

The most important thing is to ditch the sugar and eat only as many complex carbohydrates as your body needs (it varies from person to person). Eat tons of veggies for fiber and to build good gut bacteria. Start checking your fasting blood sugar in the morning and shoot for a level between 80 and 100. Anything over 100 is too high. Also, exercise daily, with bursts of high intensity and some weight training, to sensitize your cells to insulin.

Various herbs and nutrients can help reverse insulin resistance — ask my office for a recommendation.