Change Your Brain Every Day - Could You Have a Traumatic Brain Injury and Not Even Know it?

Episode Date: September 24, 2018

Most people associate the term “traumatic brain injury” with the type of severe damage that could only be caused by something as drastic a fracture of the skull. However, the truth is that you could have a significant brain injury dramatically affecting your life without you even knowing it. In the first episode in a series on brain injuries, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen describe the different forms of brain trauma.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Welcome back, everyone. We're going to talk about Brain Injury Week. So the next four podcasts, we're going to talk about the major lessons we've learned here at Amen Clinics about brain injury. So my sixter, my sixter. My shister. All the kids watching this will know what I'm saying when I say shister. It's like a whole thing. My sister had her 60th birthday party yesterday, and we went, and it was awesome.

So talk about brain injury. Aging is sort of not good for your brain. I don't know if I'd classify it as a brain injury, though. And I had the most interesting conversation with my nephew, who really hasn't talked to me much in the last 10 years because he knows- Probably didn't want to know what you had to say. How opposed I am. Well, while you have to back up, you have to explain why. He's got these two sons who, no joke, are the biggest kids I've ever seen for their age. They've always been so big. So the oldest one now is 14 and I think he's like six foot something.

Yeah, it's like crazy. 225 pounds. So these kids are huge. So ninth grade, they want him to play football. Of course. So, you know, my thoughts, brain is soft, skull is hard. But the kid could play basketball too. And he could play tennis, and he could play golf. But basketball would be like a perfect fit.

But anyways, we actually had a really nice long conversation because there are helmet companies saying that, and they're expensive, like up to $1,800 for a helmet, that decreases the forces. And he's like, well, of course, that will then make football safe. And the problem is helmets decrease skull fractures. They don't, they can't stop the jostling around of your brain inside your skull. Well, and there's another issue.

So I was a neurosurgical ICU nurse, right? So no one really thinks about this because we would get in motorcycle riders all the time and athletes. And something that we saw actually a significant amount of in a neurosurgical ICU unit were something called compression fractures.. So yeah, they're wearing helmets, right? So they think they're safe. What they don't realize is if you go in the air and you land on your head, no one really thinks about the force on the spine, on the neck, on C1, C2, whatever, on your cervical spine, we would get people paralyzed. So because they would land on their heads and they still ended up with concussions, but they would like severe brain injuries sometimes. But what they don't think about-

Well, because if you just think of what is going on when they're slamming their spine that causes that compression fracture. Right, well, and the helmet sort of ends right there. So- But what is going on on the forces inside your skull with your soft tofu custard somewhere between egg whites and jello brain is the slamming up against the sharp bony. But all those serve all of your discs in your spine and your you know that's all at risk as well and no one really talks about that. So it's like you can wear a helmet, you're still going to hurt your brain, but you're

also at high risk for other injuries right around your neck area. Well, and that's actually very sensitive for you at the moment. Yes, because I'm suffering from a neck injury. So I'm not very happy with, well, actually I'm doing, I'm like one of those people, if you give me a plan, I'm going to work it to death. So, I'm like very hyper-focused on my plan at the moment because I don't want surgery on my neck. But yeah, no, I've had to like really, really curtail my normal routine and I really have

empathy for people who write in and they're like, I can't do your program because you inspire me but I can't exercise. I'm like, look, I get it. I have to completely revamp everything I'm doing right now for the last few months, actually. So it started by imaging your neck. Right. And as we've talked about on the show before, you actually had a pretty significant injury to your neck and your head. Right.

And I have scoliosis, so it probably impacted it even worse. And nobody talks about how the most vulnerable day of your life, the number one most vulnerable day of your life is the day you were born. And you didn't want to come out the right way. Apparently not. I was coming out rear end first. You were mooning the world. I was mooning the world. I was mooning the doctor for sure. I'm like, I'm not coming. You can't make me. So he decided he was going to win and he reached in and

grabbed my foot and I came out doing the splits. Oh no, ouch. Yeah. And who knows if that is the entire story, but there are some doctors who think that that was a significant reason, or at least it led to some of the issues with my spine. And so- And why you have scoliosis. Yeah, and I don't know.

I don't know if that is the reason or not. What I know is I have scoliosis. And so now I have this neck injury, and I gotta tell you, there's nothing I love more. My form of therapy is going into my martial arts classes and just hitting things as hard as I can. I like to hit things as hard as I can. I like to kick things, not people, pads, as hard as I can.

It feels so good. You wanna fantasize about hitting pads? No, no, well, maybe, but that's not really it. It's a release. I can't explain it. It's like this release that you feel. It just feels good. So it's just this feeling of like, oh, it's just like relief. So it's a good feeling. Anybody who practices martial arts knows what I'm talking about. It's just a good feeling. And we've actually had many people write into the show that they've actually taken up martial

arts after listening to you. Right. So I love it. So imagine I've been doing this for a long time, but I'm not stupid. Okay. So I now know, no, I'm not going to say I haven't been stupid in the past and I haven't not listened and I have not gone in and done that when I shouldn't have. I have. I of course would never say you're stupid. I know. Because then I might get a head injury. That's the whole point of the week.

When I was passing my black belt test, I did not listen so well. And I did what I shouldn't have done. But now I really get it, how hard it is for some of you. Because I can't do the thing I love. But what I tell other people is the same thing that I now have to practice myself. Focus on what you can do, not on what you can't do. I cannot hit stuff right now. So let's, those of you listening, have you ever had a brain injury?

And one of the things that I learned after I started looking at the brain is you have to ask people literally 10 times whether or not they ever had a brain injury. And initially, many people say no. And then when you go, you're one. When I asked you, have you ever had a brain injury after looking at your scan? Because you hurt your left temporal lobe. And you went no, because you're thinking of a brain injury. So I have a gripe with this whole TBI term. Okay. So I have a gripe with the term traumatic

brain injury. Now I get it. Technically, it's correct. But as somebody who works in the hospital, I mean, you've heard me say this before on other podcasts, if you listen to our podcasts. But as a nurse who works in a hospital, as a neurosurgical ICU nurse, when you say the word TBI, okay, we're talking people in the ICU with their head split open

or with a drain in their brain. Or so I, like, I almost wish we had a term to differentiate. Well, many people will call it a mild TBI, but I have problems with that because mild TBI means it's not very serious. Or how about conscious, like, closed brain TBI? I would be okay with that. Then I would, like, think of it differently. Well, we can agree on that one.

But mild TBI implies it's not that significant. Right. And what I've seen is you can totally damage your frontal lobes, your temporal lobes, your cerebellum, whatever. And it came and you didn't even lose consciousness. No. Because consciousness is a brain stem phenomenon where you can completely wipe out your left or right frontal lobes. But I did hurt my frontal lobes. And ruin your life. And that's what I talked about with my nephew yesterday.

So his son, besides being big and strong, is also an honors student. And he really gets a lot of self-esteem, as does his mom and dad, with him doing so well in school. And I'm like, well, if you let him play football, is it OK for you that if he goes from an IQ of 130 to 115, and he's like, no, that's not okay. But that's what playing a season or two or three or four can do because the repetitive hits, Joe Lewis said, the famous boxer, it's not the big hits that get you.

It's the thousands of subconcussive blows or the little hits that get you. And when we think of you, when I asked you if you ever had a brain injury, you go, no, because you're thinking of some massive thing. But then what you explained to me was a massive thing, right? Your sister falling asleep at the wheel. And the whole reason you asked me was because, and you kept asking me, was because you could see the damage to my frontal lobe and to my left temporal lobe on the scan. And you're like, no, I can see it.

Like, what happened? Something happened. And you kept pressing. And I'm like, nothing. Like, I've not done anything. I've been falling out of a tree. I haven't, like, never lost consciousness. I couldn't, you know, never broken a bone.

Tell me what, tell everyone what you then told me when you remembered. Okay. So if you have listened to our other podcast, you've heard this. But we were driving and we were on a very isolated country road. And my sister was driving. She was, I was asleep. And so I had the seat back. Thank God I had the seat back

or I probably would not be here talking to you today. But she fell asleep at the wheel and she was going about 75 miles an hour and flipped the car. Three times. Two and a half times, yeah. Because we ended up upside down. So it was not a full three times.

So just think you're laying back. Your brain inside your skull is going 75 miles an hour. And then she falls asleep. The car flips over two and a half times. So just think about what's happening to the forces on your brain inside your skull. So it's twisting. And then when it stops, the roof caved in, right? Yeah, and there's a good chance I hit the center divider. I woke up so I don't recall everything. And so 75 miles an hour, it's twisting.

And then all of a sudden, boom, it stops. Slams up against your frontal bone, back against the occipital bone in the back, back against the frontal lobe. I mean, it shakes with a lot of force. And even though you wake up and you're grateful you're not dead, you can see evidence years later that it could have impacted you. And then, and most people don't know that mild, right? I mean, there's nothing mild about that, but mild traumatic brain injury

can be associated with depression, as you've talked about on the show. Was that before the depressive episode or after the depressive episode? No, the accident was after. After. Yeah. So Lincoln, who suffered with some severe depressive episodes, he was suicidal twice in his life, was kicked in the head by a horse when he was 10 years old and unconscious all night long. And so is that a major TBI? I would argue probably so, but it was a closed brain injury. So we're on the same page with that. So I just want you to ask yourself,

have you ever had a significant brain injury? Because when come back we're going to begin to talk about the fallout from traumatic brain injuries and then as we go through the week we're going to talk about what can you do about it to rehabilitate your brain in the best way possible. Stay with us. Use the code podcast10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Go to iTunes and leave a review and you'll automatically be entered into a drawing to get a free signed copy of the Brain Warriors Way and the Brain Warriors Way cookbook we give away every month.