Change Your Brain Every Day - The Harmful Effects of Not Treating Brain Injuries With Jerri Sher

Episode Date: April 27, 2021

Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen continue their discussion with Filmmaker Jerri Sher about the many different harmful side effects of letting a brain injury go untreated and how a movie can illustrate this subject that doesn't often garner enough attention.

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 are still here with our friend, Jerry Scher, the producer of Quiet Explosions. We're just having this great conversation about brain injury and the effect of it. And it's such a great movie. If you haven't seen it, you should see it. You can see it on, I believe it's Prime and Vimeo. It's just, it's a really a great movie. If you haven't seen it, you should see it. You can see it on, I believe it's Prime and Vimeo. It's just, it's a really a great movie. So, but we want to talk in this episode about the effects of not treating brain injuries. And Jerry, I mean, you told us about Alan and people don't know this, that long exposure to anesthesia, not for everybody,

but for a vulnerable population, it damages their brain, just like you were in a car accident. And our assistant, Karen, I have her brain when she first started working with me, big, fat, healthy brain. And then she had an aortic aneurysm repaired and it was an eight hour surgery. And when she came back to work six weeks later, she's not the same. She used to be on top of things and she's taking care of my patients. I'm like, this is important to me. And she's not on top of things. And she's taking care of my patients. I'm like, this is important to me. And she's not on top of things anymore. And, you know, initially I got frustrated and then I'm thinking something changed with the surgery. How I first found this out, it was probably 25 years

ago. I treated this alcoholic in Oregon and she got better. And so I have bad brain, good brain. I love that. And then she had knee surgery and she calls me up. She goes, I have Alzheimer's disease. I'm like, what do you mean? And she's like crying. And so I scan her again, her bad brain's back. And it got me thinking that general anesthesia for vulnerable people can damage their brain like a head injury. And I'm not so sure, I think for vulnerable people, I'm not sure it has to be 12 hours. That happened to me after four hours of surgery. I kept telling you, I don't feel right. I'm not as happy. And I feel like I'm walking through mud. And I was like, is it physical? Is it hormonal? But when we scanned me,

it was my brain. It was not. It was the anesthesia. A happy brain. And so you went in a hyperbaric chamber and. Started up to my exercise again. And. Upped your supplements. Diet. So what were some of the common themes, Jerry, that you saw of the people who struggled? So, we've already talked about memory loss, suicidal ideation. What else did you see that surprised you? Well, Sean Dollar, who you know very well, our famous surfer, he actually had bouts of crying. He was like almost like in a fog. It was like his brain was foggy all the time.

He couldn't function. And that was very prevalent in our Green Beret also, Andrew Marr and Kevin. So I found that people, first of all, they couldn't remember anything. They had no short-term memory whatsoever, but they were, had crying bouts. They also, many of them had insomnia. They couldn't sleep. They were very agitated and they had huge anxiety. And the interesting thing, which you probably saw this in Monday or Tuesday in the wall street journal this week, there was a huge article about COVID patients. Now months ago had the same exact symptoms as these people with TBI and PTSD,

mostly long haulers. And I said to myself, to my publicist, you need to call this woman who wrote this article and tell her about this movie. If people watch quiet explosions, healing the brain, they, tell her about this movie. If people watch Quiet Explosions Healing the Brain, there are methods and ways to help yourself to go to the AMA clinic, to start hyperbaric osteomorphy, TMS,

transcranial magnetic stimulation, and so on. I am just so grateful to all the people who contact me, and I'm sure you guys. Hey, thank you for making this movie. I was about to kill myself and I saw the movie and now I'm going to stay alive. Thank you. What a feeling. So great. Nothing better. There's nothing better. But undiagnosed brain injuries.

And, you know, one of the big things I learned early on is people forget that they've had brain injuries. And you know, one of the big things I learned early on is people forget that they've had brain injuries. After Tana and I met January 1st, 2006, I was immediately taken with her. She's beautiful. She's smart. She's kind. She's thoughtful. she's articulate. And but I will never fall in love with someone until I see their brain. Not gonna happen. And so a couple of weeks later, I'm like, Hey, you haven't seen the clinic, do you want to come see the clinic? So I can see your naked brain. And, and she had a healthy brain, except I could see where sometime in the past, in the left side of her brain, it had been hurt. And I'm like, have you ever had a brain injury? And I'm like, Nope, I'm a neurosurgical ICU trauma nurse. So for me, brain injury means you've had part of your skull removed, you've got a brain drain, I can see gray matter, that's brain injury. you've had part of your skull removed you've got a brain drain I can see gray matter that's brain injury and I'm like no but I learned a long time ago that you

have to ask more than once and I'm like are you sure have you ever fallen out of a tree off a bed dove into a shallow pool been in a accident, had a concussion playing sports. And then you said, yes, but I mean, I've gotten a really bad car accident where it flipped two and a half times going 75 miles an hour, but I walked away from it. And so I thought I was okay because I didn't, I didn't break any bones. I wasn't, you know, in a coma. So if we just think brain is no i know shaken baby syndrome you go to jail for so fall is harsh all has sharp bony ridges 75 miles an hour right shaken baby syndrome yeah severe baby syndrome right um yeah so when you explain it

that way and the funny thing is i mean i survived because i was laying back but my head slammed against the center console so that's probably where it happened which is why that in the movie they refer to it as the invisible illness many people have this they don't even know it absolutely invisible you know you can't see that they lost a limb when they come back from war. It's in their head. And this is what was so astounding to the 10 different characters in our movie from different walks of life, different socioeconomic areas, different geographic areas. they were crying tears of joy that they knew that they each had the same exact symptoms and they had someone to bond with yeah an amazing thing and what I find interesting is it's obviously it's a continuum so you've got people who are who are the severe and like the people that you talked to and you really helped through this Jerry but you've got people who are either more

like me or maybe a little worse than I was, where we're functional, we're okay. But we're struggling with certain things. And we don't really know why. And we think it's really just our fault. And so it's like, I need more discipline. So I mean, I was rigidly disciplined, because I knew I had to be like rigid. And my life was if you look to me from the outside, everything's good. So many people who are listening, it's like, okay, we're functional. I pay my bills. I go to work. I'm doing okay. Everything's fine. Financially, I'm not in the red. I'm okay. Everything's okay. But what I didn't realize was that I wasn't meeting my potential. After I fixed that, after I realized what it was and I started doing the right things, wow. I mean, just everything became easier. It's like I was happier.

Things became easier. And then I had anesthesia and it became hard again. It was really interesting. And so that's what I want really people to know. And that's why we are so happy you're here because people don't know these things. And so unless it's severe, they think that they don't have a problem.

No, it doesn't have to be severe. And it's additive. And it's robbing you of your potential. And it adds up. We'll talk about some of the treatments in the next episode. But there was a new article just last week in The Economist on the incidence of traumatic brain injury in prisons. And what about the homeless? It skyrocketed.

There's another study from Toronto on 58% of the homeless men, 42% of the homeless women had a significant brain injury before they were homeless. And I did a study with Rob Johnson at Sierra Tucson, a large drug treatment hospital in Arizona. 44% of the new admissions to that hospital had a significant brain injury before they were homeless. It may be more important than you have genetic vulnerability to mental health

issues and people go oh but it's genetic it's like part of it because everybody was in the car when they had the accident and then and nobody knows because as jerry and I talked about, and you and I know, most psychiatrists, so they see psychiatrists who never look at the brain. And so they go, oh, you have six of these nine symptoms. You're depressed. Take Prozac, which for some brains is just not the right thing. But it also increases shame and stigma. If you don't, you know, if you really don't help these people understand

where it's coming from. And that's, I mean, the movie, Dry Explosion does such a great job of really, it just does such a great job of really showing, decreasing that stigma, decreasing shame, showing, you know, how much these people struggle. And they're really, these are highly functional people who these people struggle. And they're really, these are highly functional people who now are really struggling and they're in pain. So I just,

I strongly recommend you watch the movie. If you know someone struggling, if you've struggled, if there's anyone that you think could benefit from understanding more about the effect of brain injury, even when you can't see gray matter, when you're not like me, where you think it has to be that you've lost part of your skull. No, it's it can be a car accident that you walked away from need to lose consciousness, right? Jerry, didn't that surprise you? Well, I learned so much. Honestly, I was like a sponge just soaking it all up. And I had to be the encyclopedia and the dictionary for everybody. but to translate it in a way that people could understand it with not like huge medical jargon that they would get turned off. And in quietexplosions.com, which is the website, there's a resource page.

And, you know, everything is on there. Dr. Amos Clinic, the clinics all over the country, where Dr. Gordon's doctors who have been trained all over the country, there's so much on that website. We have quotes from doctors all over the world. And it's just amazing. You can get a lot of information on the website, as well as, you know, seeing the film. I mean, people write to me afterward, and I'm sure they send notes to all these doctors as well. And we do respond. So I'm very grateful for people who reach out to us and we want to do everything to help every human being. The point of me making this movie was to help more people and to positively influence

society in the realm of traumatic brain injury and PTSD. And through this journey, not only did I learn so much, but I became friends with some of the gurus and most brilliant people in the world who deal with the brain. And I just feel so grateful for that, honestly. Your brain is so important. When we come back, we're going to talk about some of the treatments that are covered in Quiet Explosions. You can learn more about it at QuietExplosions.com.

You can also watch the documentary on Amazon Prime or Vimeo. We are so grateful to Jerry for writing, directing and producing Quiet Explosions. Stay with us. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're interested in coming to Amen Clinics, use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.