Injured Brains Respond to Hormone and Nutrition Supplementation

Brain injuries and diseases, as well as 'normal aging' and 'aging in place' are a primary factor for the majority of the clients I work with as a 'functional advisor and consultant' and 'health navigator', or 'concierge of health information', as I have come to say.  I utilize Lumigrate as my primary source of information to guide people, as they might look around and tell others they know who will look around, and essentially find a 'core of information' to follow out to in the links of the experts who provide information. It is available to providers and consumers to learn from self-help as well.  Related to brain injuries there are other topics in this forum so please navigate with the links above this topic's title and go 'up' to the forum and see the list.  

When I can't find a resource to easily send people to for learning, myself included, I create a topic or impose upon one of our GRATE group of providers who frequently start topics for others to read or comment on. Brain injury and hormones was one I needed to create, so here it is.  I will put out the link to 'the grate team' for their input; we ALL learn from the process, that's one of the benefits of being part of the team of providers at Lumigrate.com.  

Here is a resource to look at, the abstract and link to the article is provided, I encourage the journey if you are interested in what you see: 

Is progesterone a worthy candidate as a novel therapy for traumatic brain injury?

Donald G Stein

Department of Emergency Medicine, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Although progesterone is critical to a healthy pregnancy, it is now known to have other important functions as well. Recent research demonstrates that this hormone is also a potent neurosteroid that can protect damaged cells in the central and peripheral nervous systems and has rapid actions that go well beyond its effects on the classical intranuclear progesterone receptor. Based on years of preclinical research demonstrating its safety and effectiveness in animal models of central nervous system injury the hormone was recently tested in two Phase II clinical trials for traumatic brain injury (TBI). A US National Institutes of Health-sponsored, nationwide Phase III clinical trial is now evaluating progesterone for moderate-to-severe TBI in 1200 patients. An industry-sponsored Phase III international trial is also under way, and planning for a trial using progesterone to treat pediatric brain injury has begun. Preclinical data suggest that progesterone may also be effective in stroke and some neurodegenerative disorders.

Keywords: progesterone; brain injury; injury; tby; traumatic brain; traumatic; brain; novel therapy; trial; worthy; neurosteroid; phase iiy; research demonstrate; phase; candidate; 

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Link: lib.bioinfo.pl/paper:22033509

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Therapists and other medical workers, patients, and their support systems generally know that people who have injured brains can at least short-term, if not long-term, demonstrate problems with concentration and memory, insomnia, depression, anger, anxiety, sensitivity to sensory input (visual, sound, tactile, etc.), muscle coordination/strength, and develop systemic problems such as diabetes and cardiovascular problems.   

Brain injuries can occur from so many sources: there has been a lot of publicity lately about divers who harvest lobsters getting 'the bends', though I have never had someone sustain their injury that way in my work here in the US.  I have had several who had carbon monoxide poisoning, though, and benefitted from HBOT 'dives' provided at large enough hospitals they had such technology, which is also used for wound healing facilitation, so due to the increase in people wounds, such as from diabetes, these programs have become increasingly available as they can save a great deal of health-care money.  

Several of my patients/clients with brain injuries in the past had an injury and lost a lot of blood and their brains were depleted of oxygen for an extended period of time.  One had hiked at a very high altitude without supplemental oxygen. Another had misstepped hiking a 14-er and tumbled 900 vertical feet and the brain was shaken, rattled and rolled down the hill in the 'cranium' attached to a body.  Another had a stroke when hiking Kilamanjaro, due to a heard defect that had been suspected and tested for every which way but the ONE way that would have seen it to repair it.  Those are just the 'short list' of the most 'unique' patients/clients. 

The majority of brain injuries are from car crashes, and it's important to note that I was finding symptoms of brain injury that had not been diagnosed as such when they presented to the ER.  Another major cause is from athletic/recreational sports, and I believe there are MANY out there who have never had anything 'dramatic enough' at the time to make the person identify what occurred as a "brain injury", who today are having the above-listed behaviors or symptoms and are missing treatment options because they and their providers don't identify with having had a 'brain injury'.

I was among them until middle age, and then it was a process of 'someone said that my brain seemed like.....' to 'wow, I had a significant brain injury, clearly at birth, and I can see symptoms as a child and teen which could have tipped everyone off .. and if we knew then what we/I know now, I could have addressed things and really changed the costs of my health on my life'. Just the first four years of college struggles with undiagnosed learning disabilities alone was expensive to my body, mind, spirit AND bank accounts! I finally graduated 18 years after graduating in the top 25% of my class at a VERY college-bound high school in Evergreen, Colorado, known to be 'upper class or wealthy', though I came from 12 miles away from 'the other side of the tracks'. In our case there were not rail tracks, but to put it in perspective, it was the same community South Park co-creator Trey Parker grew up in 10 years after me.

My family of origin was upper middle class but my parents were older and had their own 'issues' to deal with, such as purchasing retirement property, and were quite frankly 'neglectful' of their duties to child-rearing. They were made aware of my problems but they weren't seeming to be an issue since I had good grades and wasn't in any kind of 'trouble', however, I was retreating from challenges or having my self-esteem stubbed by not being chosen for teams, not staying with my peers in the harder classes, being called out for having Bs by essentially 'mean girl friends'.  

So I hope that three decades or more later, with my years of professional experience melded with my personal experience, what I have to say on this subject has some merit and affects you in a positive learning way here at Lumigrate. (I took it upon myself in my 20s to go to the type of specialized optometrist that had been 'skipped' when under my parents' control, solving the problem as best you can with an older brain, would have been VERY different/much better had I been with a developing brain. Live and learn, deal with the cards you are dealt and play your game as best you can, is my approach to life and advising people in my consultations.) 

The pituitary and hypothalamus are glands/structures deep within the brain/head/cranium.  The forces that our brains have upon them in modern day activities increasingly put them at risk in many ways.  In the case of 'injury' from trauma, it is not just from a force to the skull which can impact them, but forces from the body/brain shifting directions.  

Airbags have 'softened the blow' when a car comes to a sudden stop but the brain went from X miles/hour to 0 and sometimes backwards or sideways rapidly.  The 'symphony conductors' of the hormone symphony in the brain/body are the master glands in the brain which signal thyroid, adrenalin, and the sex hormones. So there can be short and long-term consequences from injury.  I like the analogy of 'the hormone symphony' that Gary King speaks of because it reminds us how many different 'instruments' organs have to be in tune and that it's so intricate what goes on with all of them 'hearing the other' and adjusting what it is doing to make a perfect 'wellness concert'.  

The 'light of knowledge' has been shining increasingly in recent years on "brain injury."  There is really no controversy at this time that brain injury can lead the pituitary to dysfunction.  Returning veterans who have incredibly high rates of brain injury due to the concussive impact of blasts in the new style of warfare, NFL's players and their wives and families, and laws to protect our school's students from 'second impact syndrome' or SIS.  In Colorado, January 1, 2012 welcomed in the new "Jake Snakenberg Law" which requires each student who has a suspected concussion during school or school-related sporting events stop play and intense thinking (video games, reading/studying) until a neurologically-knowledgeable medical provider test the student and determine the brain was no longer inflamed.

 I hope this topic will shine the light for people with an interest about fibromyalgia to see there is a connection in some cases, per the research. There are other pieces in this same forum about brain injury in youth, and a major supplement manufacturer's product and educational information about brain injury and the hormone changes that can occur.  Just click on the link above the title to this piece, the one on the right is like 'one level up' and the one on the far left is 'Home'/all the way up.  

It all starts to come together and make so much sense, eh!? THIS concept is one I focused in on in late 2007 when I had local providers gather to discuss fibromyalgia one evening over dinner, though they only overlapped for a short period of time, but I have learned from that first dinner discussion how to frame things differently related to what we're setting out to accomplish and the providers are seeing the benefit in offering up a whole evening of time for a thorough discussion.  I hope we can have one every year on this topic, it's that important in the overall scheme of things.  

Brain injury: what causes it, how to go about treating it. From that formative time when I was working as an outpatient OT contractor in an allopathic medical building to today via Lumigrate.com as the 'message board' for the providers invited to be able to have 'virtual discussions' has been much time, energy and money put forth but Lumigrate launched just over three years ago, and I've had to go about things very differently than was originally planned but we're finally HERE! Talking about the 'confluence' about brain injury and chronic fatigue/fibromyalgia AND other neurologically-driven chronic conditions.  

Does it have something to do with foods?  Foods cause inflammation or not so it seems like it would, but I'm just an occupational therapist not a medical researcher or physician.  Does it matter if we drink water and what that water is like?  Makes sense to me! Stimulants?  Depresants? Sleep quality? Supplements that could help or hinder brain healing? (of nutrition or hormones both).

Just this year, in 2012, the 'crash test dummies' have finally included the average sized woman since the ones being used all this time were the average sized man from the time period they started doing the research.  Which naturally isn't the same average size today as we're on average larger, but changes would then throw off all the data to be beginning of the research.  I found a very well done medical study looking at the incidence of people with diagnosed fibromyalgia who had cervical disk versus lumbar disk herniations. Over 10x more people had problematic cervical than lumbar disks!

And what did the conclusions state? That there might be something involved with the flow of things around the neck -- blood flow or cerebrospinal fluid, etc.  But why not think about that when the neck disk was stressed that heavy ball at the top of the neck was too, and the sloshy brain that was inside? It just always felt to me that what I was reading for cutting edge research was missing the boat in key ways that seemed obvious to me; perhaps it was the funding sources' impact on research, something I hope all people learing at Lumigrate are aware of and keep in mind whenever looking at studies that come out.  

Unfortunately, it is easier said than done to find medical providers who are knowledgeable about "well" brains let alone ill or injured ones and how to heal them using today's information! So I encourage the consumers to find advocates to help them learn -- remember, they have brain injuries so that's not going to be easy or potentially 'good for them' to 'study hard information'.  And then work with the providers you get to surround YOU, as our Lumigrate You Model suggests, collaborating on what you find researching. 

In my two years specializing in driving rehabilitation early in my career as a registered occupational therapist (OTR), in 1998-2000, I saw many teens and young adults who had ambitions and/or the parent had ambitions about their child which made them difficult to get navigated toward what they needed.  Even our 'regular' new drivers who did not have special needs were hard to convince to GO HOME AND GOOD FOODS AND PURE WATER AND GET A GOOD SLEEP BEFORE COMING BACK TOMORROW.  This was the company's parting advise to the students at the end of their first of two back-to-back days on the skills driving range where they performed in their own vehicle in pods of up to a dozen other new drivers in a very controlled and safety-conscious way.  

Naturally, it was about that individual's safety but also OUR safety and the safety of all the students we were mentoring and teaching, depended upon them doing that. And most did, because they were VERY challenged by the first day and it was intended to humble them in a way, to make them serious about the ramifications of being behind the wheel of a heavy vehicle. Think about all you see about aggressive, inappropriate 'pushy' parents on the sidelines at sports or even in selling cookies for nonprofits! So I have been concerned, and this is my response.  

It's going to be VERY difficult to impress upon students and parents the importance of RESTING the brain, because RESTING is the most difficult thing for me to teach my patients/clients who have brain-based medical problems, such as fibromyalgia and brain injury. Remember, I come from a standpoint of functional and integrative medicine, bringing body, mind and spirit together for YOU, the person.  

I recall a 17 year old woman with fibromyalgia whose primary care physician referred to me after her family had moved to Grand Junction, the regional medical hub for a large area of Colorado/Utah. She had been an active athlete and "good student" academically and behaviorally.  She got online and had learned that exercise was good for healing her condition so she went out for a 'short' 20 minute walk and it whalloped her!  She had NO CLUE that 20 minutes is way, way too far for most people with 'advanced' FM to start with. Some people I worked with were referred when their providers sent them to the regional medical center for pool therapy and they weren't able to participate because it was too much for them to get there, change, do the therapy, change again and go home.  

And EVERY adult I consulted with who had brain injuries at some point thought they were doing so well in their recovery they tried doing something they used to do -- go to an action movie, or bird hunting, and they ended up instantly back many steps in their recovery.  Because perhaps I was the ONLY one that was cautioning them from DAY 1 about when they get to that phase of recovery and forget they have a brain that is now not the way it was before, and they have to stay conscious of it forever, and adjust their life forever after.  (These were significant enough injuries they were workers compensation, or involving legal actions with those at fault, etc. not the 'everyday' milder head injuries called by some "concussions" (though I think that is a bad term to use unless you're talking physics). Those milder brain injuries are JUST as serious at the time but the brain likely fully repairs and then the person can go back to all their previous activities without incident, at some point. ) 

When workers compensation insurance is paying for things, they sometimes don't have tolerance for such 'regress', they expect constant 'progress' and so in one case someone went from being on track to return to work to going the route of permanent disability, unfortunately. All over going to a weekend movie! I'd even say to each of them 'EVERY patient starts feeling so 'normal' again they try to do something that's too much for them and get set back a ways so please make me be able to say 'except one'."  And you'll notice that I still say 'EVERY'. This is SERIOUS STUFF, I hope people reading this will really take heed!

I've set myself back over and over in my recovery process related to fibromyalgia, so I understand. I kick myself for the time I fell and saw stars when the back of my helmet hit the asphalt when in-line skating at age 31, and I continued to join in the evening skating activity and didn't slowly make my way to the bench and sit and drink water and breathe deeply. It was shortly after that my first symptoms of fibromyalgia 'brain' occurred, initially an ADD-type event which was totally unlike me previously, and having difficulty learning a new phone system around that same time; a system I had used in the past which was 'basic' but unfamiliar to me.  

My supervisor and I didn't say 'this seems like a brain injury' and I was working at a health center for the students at the Univeristy I'd worked for since age 19. I was given a prescription for Ritilin, which was clearly not a drug 'for me', so ADD was not the problem. It really amazes me now, looking back, knowing what I know now, how things went so missed-diagnosed, but I've learned a great deal from it and hope that experience pays off helping YOU with education or consultations related to individual cases or groups. 

Ultimately, you just have to do your best -- every day, every moment of every day; that's all we can all do.  We're all learning. Just keep learning and growing. Lumigrate can be your "virtual team" at the VERY least, and hopefully you can have live support from providers or people if you wish, or certainly the education that we provide to ALL for FREE. 

That is why I focused the first years of Lumigrate to get at least one provider or preferably two from each of the more common areas of integrative medicine, OR found online providers who I have studied and find valid and in line with Lumigrate's values. And for that reason, some of our providers change as time goes on, as we learn and grow. We actually found that by shrinking a bit in number of providers but having our quality high, it was a beneficial niche for us.   We're a work in progress, just as each person is.  "Organic" so to speak. So thank you for understanding this if you're using Lumigrate as a resource from the past and watched our transitions.  

I am VERY concerned about what I read when doing research for a topic on Lumigrate about The Jake Snakengerg Law; one of the doctors a Denver newspaper interviewed said essentially 'there's nothing you can do for brain injury, it's just a matter of time'.   WHAT?????  Yes, that's what my face looked like when reading the words on the screen.  It makes my heart hurt for those who are going to go through what I have gone through .  I have come to understand it for my case, I was born in 1960 and slipped through a lot of cracks in the schools and family systems and I've done a lot of 'work' around coming to accept it and believe that it was what was meant to be for the life that I chose to have right now, which gets into my personal "spirit" beliefs.  (For more about that, please refer to the spirituality forum and elsewhere in this Forums area) 

The saying 'time heals all wounds' does NOT apply to brain injuries! That is about wounds to our mind and spirit NOT to our brain! (There is a distinction between 'mind' and 'spirit' -- brain is part of the body, basically, and other things which go on in the processing of the brain is 'mind' -- again, there is a forum all about mind just like this one is about 'head'/brain.  

Should someone go home after a concussion and drink an energy drink with caffeine and sugar and eat a pizza full of wheat and dairy ingredients which lead to an inflammation respose in most people in the United States? What about the students who have long-term effects from their brain injuries -- are they being told -- 'wait and see -- it's just a matter of time'.  How sad! The lasting repercussions simply socially and psychologically from having to be separated from your cohorts is so very difficult and I've seen people well into adulthood who are still suffering the effects due to not going back and clearing up the pain from that.

Pain is what can lead some people to take to substances and behaviors that do them harm, which can range from food or shopping addiction to "cutting" and naturally drug/alcohol abuse. Add in genetic factors and nutrition which affects genes getting turned on or not and it makes every person their own 'onion' to peel.   Which is cool when they work on getting through the layers to the core and often I am asked to be along for that as an advisor and over the years I've gotten enough experience to end up being here with you now, with Lumigrate.com as a resource/tool.

And hopefully we will all do our part for helping those around us learn more. At least the conventional medical establishment has caught up in recent years to knowing that the brain continues to heal due to 'plasticity' for much longer than was thought and taught in the past. "They" used to say it things would change for six months and then you had what you were going to have .. sometimes up to a year.  But I'd see patients/clients who had been told that and they'd come to me after that window of time and they would make huge progress.  Sometimes I saw it after we were done working together as therapist/client and they were just 'living their new life', and they'd clearly be processing cognitive information differently.  

Still, I've had a medical provider tell me that what I had in brain damage over six years ago from a medication presciption change which mistakenly put me into detox and almost seizures (I was seeing things when driving that looked like time lapse) would likely be what I would have forever.  That was several years ago and my research and beliefs about how mind/body/spirit medicine works differed, and I chose to 'plan for the worst and hope for the best' and things continue to get better due to the techniques I 'do' and seek out to be part of my medical team.

I am actually getting back into the type of work I did prior to that incident, which I did not think I was going to be able to do, so even in the time since I started working on what became Lumigrate four years ago, I have been able to 'shift gears'. Typically, my clients appreciate that I've 'been there' and can commiserate and all have to bear with the current effects still, OR they can go elsewhere. Hopefully YOU do as well. 

So in December, after learning of the new law in my state which was going to overwhelm the medical providers taxed with becoming brain injury specialists, many of whom will believe as I have just said, above, I started asking around the Lumigrate team and EVERYWHERE.  

At a holiday fundraiser in 2011, I saw a former colleague who is now with the VA hospital and I knew she was knowledgeable about bioidentical hormones and nutritional supplemention to counter the effects of aging and disease on the brain/body, and pounced on her.  She told me about a large, highly recognized supplement manufacturing and distribution company marketing and studying about brain injury and progesterone.  (You will see a topic in this forum about Life Extension if you navigate a level up to this forum title/list of topics). I looked it into it very soon after and they have incredible information, but if someone posts or gives information and the source of the information is going to make money from what is suggested, then I find it REALLY helpful to validate the information with 'the Lumigrate team'.   

So I'll be asking the 'team' at Lumigrate to read this and comment if they wish, when they have time. Those providers might not be accessible to those reading but they typically can help someone find a provider in their area; often there are Finders on the websites they link to from their websites.  And if you get stuck, Contact Us and we'll help too!

Also, as I have said, much of what goes on with Lumigrate is 'progessive information', and even our team of providers learns together.  We had a wonderful example of that last week related to details about thyroid supplementation.  It's part of what the providers have requested and suggested of me -- the continuing education they get from writing at Lumigrate has to do with it not only deepening their education but also having others to have "curbside consults" with.  

I feel I need to credit a manager hired at the same time I was in 1996/7, who was also an OTR, and who I'd sat next to in a week-long class about assessing motor/body and process/brain skills. She had allowed me to use her clinic at her previous job as a practice place for getting certified.  Her husband had learning disabilities and rather than see me fail and become fired as I think the company would have done with the small errors I was making and the difficulties I was having learning to document for Medicare, something for some unknown reason we were not taught in college nor did I get it in my internships as they were at the VA, she suggested I get in to see Lynn Hellerstein, OD, FCOVD, one of Denver's pre-eminent providers about brain injury remediation. Portions of an optional text was written by her, but I didn't know she was in Denver! 

Having a consult with her in 1997 for the first time resulted in her turning to my chart and saying 'I'm not seeing how your brain injury happened, was it a car crash?'.   I didn't know I had a brain injury, but that kinda makes sense, based on what I was told about my birth and what I had realized looking at home movies after I had training in my occupational therapy program about shaken baby syndrome and brain injury in babies!  (Please visit her website at:  lynnhellerstein.com/ or find her topics at Lumigrate.com! she has great information about the brain and brain injuries.)

The point I hope people really get is this:

it's a process that unfolds and it's up to each person to put their head in the sand or stick it up in the light and deal with it. Dealing with it takes effort and commitment and stamina. But it is YOUR life, think LONG TERM not short term satisfactions related to your budget of time, energy, money/insurance. 

Most of what has helped me is not covered by insurances and I make the decision to put resources, when available, into things which can help me have a better present and future. What works for me is not what will necessarily work for anyone else; we each have to get in touch with that inner guide inside of us to help direct us and those around us for what we need. And it is a long process.  Make a wish list and start working on it and you'll be surprised how many things will start to unfold and lead to YOUR path of health and well-being. 

SO, on this most difficult topic I asked all the usual experts at Lumigrate and then also turned the 'granddaddy' of chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia about hormones and nutritional supplementation after brain injury, Jacob Teitelbaum, MD, author of many books beginning with From Fatigued to Fantastic (which I recommend to all who have CFS/FM) and most recently Beat Sugar Addiction Now! (which I recommend to ALL people who eat and drink 'normally' whether health/well or ill) and requested his input and got this response: 

Aloha Mardy,

 

See http://www.endfatigue.com/web-newsletters/Newsletter_3_head_trauma_cfs_fm.html for the TBI and hormone trail. Also, add heavy antioxidants as the micro bleeds are oxidative (the vitamin powder), vitamin E (mixed natural tocopherol) 400 iu, and lipoic acid 300 mg 2x/day for 3 - 6 months should take care of this (even if the injury occurred years earlier)

 

The progesterone increases GABA, a neuron-calming neurotransmitter.

 

Hope this is helpful

 

Love & Blessings

Jacob

 

The vitamin powder he is referring to is a product which is sold through EndFatigue.com and elsewhere. He has said most recently that he donates the profits from the sale of supplements he recommends which he helped develop to charity. More below, in comments (See *****) for details about products/experts and the controversies in todays changing times about product endorsement and monies.