Change Your Brain Every Day - Lessons Learned from a Traumatic Brain Injury with Josh Perry

Episode Date: July 25, 2019

BMX rider-turned motivational speaker Josh Perry has experienced many ups and downs when it comes to the health of his brain. The lessons he’s learned along the way, however, could benefit anyone, whether they’ve had a TBI or not. In the fourth and final episode of a series on traumatic brain injuries and the recovery process, Dr. Daniel Amen, Tana Amen, and Josh discuss the most important principles to keep in mind when recuperating the brain.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your 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 nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome back. We're here with Josh Perry. And before we get into it, what is the one thing you've been struggling with that you need to overcome?

And what one idea did you get from this series of podcasts? Post them on any of your social media channels, hashtag BrainWarriorsWay podcast. I learned one thing. What did you say? Are you on self or on purpose? I love that. That's what I learned.

This is really good. You've been really great. This is fantastic. So post that. Yeah. Montana Amen. Yeah. Hashtag really great. This is fantastic. So post that. Yeah. Montana Amen. Yeah. Hashtag brainwiresway.com.

You can actually learn more about Josh at joshperry, P-E-R-R-Y, bmx.com. Josh Perry, bmx.com. He's a speaker. He's also a ketogenic consultant, brain tumor survivor, articulate, passionate. We're so grateful to have you with us. What are you on Instagram? Josh Perry BMX, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. So it's just Josh Perry? BMX.

Josh Perry BMX. Okay. Josh Perry's taken, so I'm going to have a call. Yeah, BMX. Okay. And I didn't know about the keto consultant. My granddaughter, Emmy, when she was five months old, started having wicked seizures. In fact, in one day, she had 160 of them. And my daughter texted the videos to me, and it was like she was being electrocuted.

And they wanted to put her on a medicine that was $26,000 a dose that had more side effects than you can imagine, including wiping out your immune system. Completely. And I'm like, well, what about the ketogenic diet? It decreases seizure frequency in children by 50%. And the doctor laughed at me. So I fired him. I don't like it when people laugh at me. I knew that went south the minute that you said, do you read? And she's been basically seizure free for seven years.

Yeah. There's like 70 studies. Now, you know, I'm not a fan of the ketogenic diet for everyone because I'm a huge fan of plants and colorful fruits and vegetables. But for some people, especially with things like brain tumors, for people who have ADD, it can be really helpful. For people who have OCD, it actually makes them more OCD because they don't have the carbs that turn into serotonin. But it's fascinating. And I'm always interested in the science behind that. But let's talk more about some of the lessons you've learned and some of the questions you might have for Tan and I about diet or rehabilitating brain trauma, whatever is on your mind.

Yeah, for sure. So first, I would love to get your perspective on what Ryan and I did with our third scan using exogenous ketones. And I remember everyone in the office saying, oh, we're not sure. Everyone's on the fence that we're going to see a change now because of this trait-versed state. And we were just like all right well we still want to try because you know dr and lowry his his research is ketogenic diet and supplements so

and then me you know i got into the third diagnosis they're like yeah we think you have a genetic disorder called neurofibromatosis and i was like man neurofibromatosis or genetic or epigenetics i wonder about that in the brain brain so let's let's uh you know i've been eating high fat low carb let's let's try out the ketogenic diet, 100%. Got to do commoner, boom, boom, boom. And then after two years, now there's been no progression. And after I left competition in 2017, I was like, well, how do I provide for myself?

I'm turning down sponsors. I'm not competing anymore. Let's help people make some changes. And my buddy, Miles, we started out as, you know, a client and working with me over a year ago. He had three to five, sometimes seven seizures a day after two years of multiple brain surgeries and he was on 12 different medications. They want to cut him up again. And so him and his mom reached out and I was like, Hey, I'm not a doctor. I coach people

through this just to make lifestyle changes. I'm here to help, but you got to understand that I can't guarantee. When you did the keto scan, did you do it at rest or during concentration? During concentration. Okay. So I have up your concentration, your regular scan, And the keto scan actually dropped blood flow for you. Actually pretty significantly. Is that in the prefrontal as well? Yes. So we're probably just trying to understand. He's like, well, it dropped here, but it improved other areas.

So I'm not really sure I explained it. That's why I wanted't ask you about that your limbic brain went really up but you tend so when you concentrate it's not a typical ADD scans when you concentrate your frontal lobes actually activate. Compare, let's see, this is baseline. You see this? And we can show this on the podcast. And this is concentration. So do you see how much more activity there?

Yeah, that is unusual. So it gets better, not worse, when you concentrate. But on the ketogenic scan, it drops. And it doesn't do that for everybody. And the cerebellum drops too. Because typically we recommend a higher protein diet for people with ADD because it does help them focus. But there are some people who it sort of is reverse where if they increase in attention, you're kind of reversing. Yeah. So at least for that moment in time, it doesn't look like it improved the health of your brain much. I mean, you know, just as here's the thing, here's the thing, Josh, and you probably learned this at IIN.

We're not into diets of any kind because the first three letters in the word diet are die. So we're into individualized health care, right? That's why we run your numbers when you come in. I will never tell someone keto is good or bad. I will never tell someone being a vegan is good or bad, even though we see it's not as good for most people, but it can be great for some people if they're willing to supplement. I will never tell someone that being a caveman is good or bad. It really depends on you. It's you as an individual, what's missing in your profile. What do you need to supplement with? So it really is very individual. And that's

why we, and sometimes it's a little bit of trial and error. So yeah, it's very individual. How do you feel when you're on a ketogenic diet? I feel 10 times better than before. And that's a big piece of it. Yeah. But I also eat real food now. And so- Well, that's a big piece of it.

I'm taking this date here and there from taking Zygote's ketone supplements or fasting or just the way I eat. I don't eat sugar for the most part. But then there are times where I have sweet potato or berries or I overeat nuts that day or nut butter. And even like my cheat meal that I talk about, which isn't even regularly to be a cheat meal. I don't like saying that. It's real food still. Right. You're not going out and pigging out on donuts and french fries.

I usually go to McDonald's and get a milkshake from somewhere down the road. It's real food. Costco has a new donut cake. Oh, God. I just saw that in the news this morning. Other questions? Like I said before, when I posted the video of Dr. Ali explaining the whole helmet and concussion thing and how helmets really, not only, but they protect mostly against skull fractures and not so much the soft, buttery brain that we have. I got a lot of lash back from the BMX community thinking I'm advocating for wearing a helmet anymore, but

really it was to get an awareness of how detrimental hitting your head can be, whether you get knocked out or not, get a push or not, and how we can prevent future damage through lifestyle. It doesn't have to be a helmet, but like mindset, nutrition, exercise. So think of this. Why do people get arrested for shaken baby syndrome? Yeah. Because it doesn't matter if you have a helmet on or not. When your brain shakes, even if you didn't slam it into something,

just the shaking when you're constantly, if it's getting jostled around really heavily, and when you hit something, it really gets jostled. It goes back and forth. Okay, you get a coup-contre-coup type of movement going. And most people don't know that. When I played football, when I was in high school, I thought that protected me. And so you could hit someone as hard as you wanted to. Thinking you were protected, but it matters. But the brain is not anchored in your skull. And so when it stops, like if you're on a bike and you fall and all of a sudden your

brain stops, it then bounces inside your skull. Like shaking baby. And I often say, if God would have used me as a consultant, I would have put bumper guards around some of those sharp bony ridges in the skull. You would have done many things differently. We know. He just needed a consultant. That's all.

Okay. Let's not go there. So you're going to be God's consultant. Okay. So, so anyways, yeah, so that's one of the things,

but what, what I love that you say is that if people are going to do brain damaging sports, okay, football's not going away, right? BMX is not going to go away because people love it. It's exciting.

People will watch it. And as long as that's going to happen, it's not going to go away. So if that's going to be the case, then at least be on a brain rehabilitating program the whole time, all the time, not once in a while, not after you get hurt. Does that make sense? Yeah. And looking at the- That's what John talks about too.

He's like, man, like every NFL athlete, hockey athlete should have exogenous ketones rather than the sugary Gatorades they have in their water bottles. For sure. So you can at least get some of the benefits of the neuroprotective benefits while they're competing or, you know, have they hit their head, you know, because that's what my real passion for the ketogenic diet and exogenous ketones comes a lot from Dr. Dong and Ryan's work, looking at glucose impairment when you hit the brain or when you hit your head and the brain becomes impaired utilizing glucose. Man, like all these things. actually have for you guys was what um i would love to be able to have ryan and i chat with you

guys someday about our passion for um ketogenic supplements in the diet for brain health and optimization and like i said this is what i want to say before i look at as a tool or a lifestyle because a lot of people are like how do you stay here all the time i don't like this is the majority of time by my choices but then yeah i'm, I'm going to have some sweet potatoes. I'm going to have some berries. I'm going to have some nuts, or I'm going to go on a trip to Italy, and maybe I'll indulge a little bit one meal. That's the thing. It's not vacation indulgence.

It's one meal. Right, it's one thing. Right, right. That's what we say. Yeah, it's just like that lifestyle piece, and that's something I love sharing. But, yeah, I want to see if you guys would be into one day having ryan and i chat with you guys specifically we'll get all our questions so we're more prepared for that but really just seeing your perspective and maybe we can collaborate with uh his uh his facility the applied sport performance institute in campbell and you guys

do some stuff we can test me yeah no we we'd have to be happy to do that. I love this quote by Drew Carey. Eating crappy food is not a reward. It's a punishment. So that's how I think of it. And so when I do the right things, I feel good about myself. And now, just given what I know, when I do the wrong things because I've gone too long without eating or I'm stressed or a past habit gets triggered, then it really irritates me. And it irritates me because I love myself, because I want to live a long time. I want to be healthy. I want to be at the weight I want to be. I want my numbers to be great. But it all goes back to that labeling

and what we talked about before with how you language. So it's a cupcake. People are like, but I don't want to be deprived. But if you think of the cupcake as the deprivation, because this being here with you is purpose, right? That's I'm vibrant. I'm healthy. I get to be here with you, you know, helping people. Then this cupcake becomes deprivation. It's all about how you think of things. The cupcake is a weapon. I'll respect what you all can say to you. So, you know, if we have the priority of our brain health, it's like, why say things like,

oh, well, I feel fine now. You know, I got to die somehow. Like, I hear that all the time. And I'm like, I'm not trying to be judgmental, but your perspective is so off. It's important. And like, I'll be judgmental, but your perspective is so off. It's important. It's just kind of sad. I'll be judgmental in that aspect. It's like,

love your brain some more so you can love yourself. It's not about how you die. It's about how you live. Yeah. Great. Well, you can learn more about Josh Perry at joshperrybmx.com. You can also follow him on Instagram,

joshperrybmx. We are so grateful. Yeah, it was are so grateful for your time and for your passion and allowing us to tell your story, your expertise. Thank you so much. And for our listeners, what is that one experience that you've had to overcome or that you are currently overcoming? What made you collapse? What one thing have you learned from this week of podcast that you can apply to your life? And are you on self or are you on purpose? I love that.

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