Concussion Rescue: Strategies for How to Treat a Concussion
Like many of you, part of my weekends involves escorting my children to various sports games and practices. One particularly chilly day in November during my 12-year-old son’s basketball game, our team was playing against an especially aggressive opponent. I turned my head away from the game for a minute to help my 6-year-old get a snack. I heard the crowd go silent, then a resounding thud reverberated around the court.
David’s Injury
David, one of the boys on my son’s team, had taken a hard shove that knocked him straight off his feet. He landed flat on his back and slammed his head onto the floor. The coach rushed over as he lay there crying. He stayed down, disheveled, then was helped to his feet and over to the bench.
Although David never appeared to lose consciousness, he had a splitting headache for the rest of the day and was very fatigued. I found out later that he was seen by his pediatrician and told to stay out of school for a week and rest.
Following his doctor’s advice, when he finally attempted to go back to school, he found it difficult to concentrate and focus on his schoolwork. The headaches began to reappear and he had light sensitivity in school – especially under the fluorescent lights which never bothered him before. He was more irritable and seemed to be in a bad mood all the time. He was not his normal happy self.
A Better Way to Heal Your Brain After a Head Injury
As a naturopathic physician at Amen Clinics with primary experience in psychiatry and the author of Concussion Rescue: A Comprehensive Program to Heal Traumatic Brain Injury, unfortunately, I see this all too often in my practice. Patients receiving dated recommendations from doctors not looking at the whole picture.
Current Concussion Protocol
The current treatment for concussions and TBI (traumatic brain injury) is rest and time. These are helpful, but there is more that you can do.
Imagine a sprained ankle. We’ve all heard of the R.I.C.E. approach (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) to healing and have been told to apply this immediately. My strategy for treating a concussion or traumatic brain injury is akin to that.
To treat a head injury, I recommend supplements to quench inflammation, antioxidants to reduce oxidative damage, a dietary strategy to help get the brain the fuel it needs to heal, and the right kinds of exercise at the right time.
Fortunately, in David’s case, I was able to help his mother develop a strategy that put David’s brain into a healing state instead of allowing his brain to suffer the cascade of events that happen in the brain after a concussion. While David did take it easy and rest for much of the week following his injury, once put on a plan, his symptoms rapidly began to improve. Several weeks later, he had no symptoms and had returned to his happy self.
Bringing Concussion Rescue to the Masses
There are over 2 million head injuries a year. I know that not everybody can come to our clinics for treatment, so I wanted to develop a program that you can follow from home.
My new online course, Concussion Rescue, is a 15-lesson comprehensive online course designed to put you on a path to brain repair and recovery.
This course will show you how to start healing your brain now. That alone can change your life. You’ll learn how to choose which foods to eat to promote healing, simple lifestyle strategies that make a big difference, which supplements to take, along with techniques to retrain your brain, and so much more.
Concussion Rescue walks you through the exact protocols I used with David and my patients at Amen Clinics.
To learn more about my new Concussion Rescue online course, head here.
If you have friends or family members who are interested in learning how to heal from a concussion or head injury, please share this course by forwarding this article to them. At BrainMD, we’re dedicated to providing the highest purity nutrients to support your brain health and overall well-being. For more information about our full list of supplements, please visit us at BrainMD.
- Concussion Rescue: Strategies for How to Treat a Concussion - July 15, 2020
Question: I had a month long concussion and double vision when I was 20 years old from a car wreck. Can there be residual effects years later. I am 57 now. I was thrown out the hatchback, flew 30 feet and landed on my head. Only other injury was a broken clavical.