Gil Winkelman ND

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How to Treat a Concussion. The 3 easy ways you need to know

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Tammy, not her real name, came to me 10 months after a car accident. She was having trouble with school. She couldn’t focus for longer than 15 minutes at a time. That’s difficult when you are attending a top-ranked liberal arts university. Her medical doctors had told her rest would make everything better.  There were medications that could help. She refused, not wanting to take pharmaceuticals. Her mother had found me online and made an appointment for her daughter to see me for concussion treatment. Six weeks later she was back to her regular self. School was going well, sleep had improved, anxiety disappeared, her headaches abated. Recover from a traumatic brain injury (TBI) is possible without pharmaceuticals. How do you treat concussion? How do you see so much change without drugs? To understand this, it is important to explore more about TBI. What is it? What symptoms arise from it? By answering these questions we begin to get a better idea of how to treat.

Six years ago, I wrote an article about concussions and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). The statistics were sobering; they still are. TBI affects millions of people every year. TBI can affects not just the brain. It can create physical, behavior, emotional, and mental problems. Many people don’t even realize that their health problems may have started with a TBI. There are many ways people get injured.  The CDC estimates that there are around 3.5 million ER visits yearly due to TBI. Falls, sports-related injuries, motor vehicle accidents, and being struck in the head by an object are some of the leading causes of TBI. Some researchers believe the number may be much higher than that. There may be as much as 4 times that many TBIs than the CDC count.

What these numbers don’t tell are that many people live with the consequences of a TBI long after the event. Between 3-5 million Americans live with an impairment related to a TBI. TBI can create long term problems. Cognitive issues, including focus, concentration and memory are associated with concussion.  But most of the people who come to see me don’t even recognize that there was injury such as Jessica. Depression, anxiety, insomnia, headaches, migraines, and fatigue may all start with a TBI. Most people come to me because of one of those problems, not because of a concussion.

TBIThere are other health risks associated with TBI.  Not long ago, the idea of TBI or concussion was such that it had to be severe to have any long term consequences.  We are learning that even a mild concussion can create long-term severe consequences.  Head trauma, even from minor incidents, can cause a wide range of  mental, emotional, and/or physical ailments. Dementia risk appears to be greater as well. Living with the effects of a TBI can be devastating. Shocking stories abound of how former professional football players and veterans take their own or others lives. Millions of others live with the long-term effects without any of the fanfare. They just have the struggle. I (and others) have helped people recover from TBI. And that recovery is safe, effective, inexpensive, and non-invasive.

How do you treat a concussion?

I am working on a more detailed article to describe treatment of these problems. For now let me give a brief overview. Treatment comes in two different modalities, supplementation and biofeedback. Supplementation can handle some of the symptoms and may reverse the damage. Vitamin D, magnesium, zinc, Vitamin B6, and Omega-3s are all helpful for post-concussion syndrome. Long-term supplementation may be able to reverse the damage of the TBI. I use supplementation with most of my patients with TBI. I may also use specific supplements to treat specific problems related to the TBI, including sleep issues or anxiety. This allows for symptom relief while unwinding the damage related to the injury.

Biofeedback though provides a more direct approach to helping TBI and treatment concussion. Neurofeedback measures the brain waves of a person and allows the brain to, in effect, see itself to recognize that there was an injury. A brain injury can result in the brain not recognizing that it has an injury. This is why I often see patients who don’t remember they had an injury but have many of the problems associated with a TBI.

Neurofeedback appears to turn back on the brain’s own repair mechanisms. Studies show that neurofeedback  is effective treating TBI. And it can also be helpful for anxiety, depression, migraines, insomnia, ADHD, and other conditions.

Neurofeedback is only one treatment for TBI. New research is showing that Heart Rate Variability (HRV) Training  can treat TBI. HRV training is a form of biofeedback. HRV is the measurement in subtle changes in heart rate between beats. Our heart beats at a different rates from moment to moment when we are resting. HRV is an excellent health assessment tool. Some researchers suggest that HRV may be the single biggest predictor of health in a person. Our HRV tends to decrease as we get older with a large drop as one nears death.

Furthermore, HRV may be a way to calculate the progress of treatment of the TBI. HRV seems to change after a TBI. HeartMath helps reduce emotional symptoms related to TBI.   HeartMath is a tool for concussions and for helping with many other conditions. HeartMath offers a home version of the device that allows patients to use on their own. I can review the data and assess their progress.

I’m excited to have another tool for treatment and assessment in my practice. If you or someone you know has had even a mild knock to the head, have them evaluated.  Even if you don’t remember having a concussion but have some of the symptoms, get checked. A qualified healthcare professional can help. Neurofeedback and supplementation may be able to help the problem that you are having.

Feel free to call my office for more information.

How to Treat Depression Naturally

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In the last blog post, we discussed fevers and suggested there was a connection between fevers and mental health. Many factors exist connecting mental illness and fevers but today we will explore one of them. The connection between inflammation and depression is important to understand so that we can better understand how to treat depression naturally.

weightloss26Depression affects almost 15 million people in the United States. Symptoms can include changes in mood, behavior, sleep disturbances, changes in appetite, weight loss or weight gain. A loss of interest in activities that were once enjoyed is often seen with depression. Below is a list of problems that arise and while most people don’t have all of them, many people have some items from one or more of the categories below.

Mood: apathy, being bored or discontented, guilt, hopelessness, inability to feel pleasure, loneliness, mood swings, sadness, or emotional distress

Cognitive: lack of concentration or focus, slowness in activity and thought, or thoughts of suicide

Behavioral: agitation, excessive crying, irritability, self-harm, or social isolation

Sleep: early awakening, excess sleepiness, insomnia, or restless sleep

Psychological: depression, anxiety, or repeatedly going over thoughts

Whole body: excessive hunger, fatigue, or loss of appetite

Weight: sudden weight gain or weight loss

What Causes Depression in the Brain?

Now that we have some understanding of what depression is, let’s look at some of the causes. Why is this a big problem in the US at the moment? (As a side note, depression and anxiety are extremely prevalent in many countries including England and Australia. It is believed that Australia has a rate of depression of at least 20%. For the purposes of this article, though, I want to narrow the focus for a moment. )

Let’s ignore socio-economic factors for a moment. Clearly that plays a factor in people’s mood, and I will explore that in future articles. I’m a physician, and as such, start at the physical level. I want to share my expertise of holistic medicine to help you and your loved ones if possible. I wish to bring to light other factors that can affect someone such as a challenging boss, marital problems, and so forth.

Getting back to the body, correlations exist between obesity and depression. This connection gives us a clue as to one of the possible causes of depression. Depression may be related to a chronic inflammatory state. The result may be a low-grade fever. The process, though, could be making you feel sick and more importantly for the purposes of this article, depressed.

When we discussed fever in the last blog post, I didn’t go into the details of what a fever actually does. Fevers are a result of the inflammatory process. Fevers are generated because the immune system recognizes something that is not you. Each cell has a tag on it that lets other cells know that it belongs in the body. It’s sort of like an ID that we carry to let it be known we are citizens. We have cells called macrophages that circulate in the body trying to figure out if there is a problem. If there is one, they send out signals in the form of something called cytokines. There are many kinds of cytokines, each being a different type of signal that cells use to communicate with one another. Cytokines have different functions and one of them is to raise the body’s temperature. They also make us feel achy, tired, and slightly depressed. This is a protective mechanism so that we slow down and rest so as to not expose others. These are some of the signs of inflammation. The body uses inflammation as a way to fight disease and/or heal wounds. But the mechanism that helps the body fight disease may be responsible for all kinds of illness including depression, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, insomnia, irritable bowel syndrome, heart disease, and many other conditions.

When we feel depressed, it is often because of these signals that have been turned on but haven’t been turned off. It is believed by some clinicians that depression is the first sign of many diseases because of this mechanism, and in fact that many diseases are caused by chronic inflammation.

How To Treat Depression Naturally

Understanding this one cause of depression helps us treat it. Reducing inflammation is very important as part of this treatment approach. It will also help improve other symptoms and reduce our risk of other ailments. Omega-3 fatty acids may be a very important part of reduction of low-grade inflammation causing depression. In my Naturopathic practice, I recommend 3 grams of Omega-3s to patients per day. That is to be distinguished from 3 grams of fish oil. There are other constituents in fish oil that are not omega-3s. Lower doses don’t have the same effect.

Curcumin (turmeric) is another excellent anti-inflammatory. Using turmeric in your cooking can be really helpful as well. An anti-inflammatory diet is also something that can help. Bromelain taken away from food can help reduce inflammation. It comes from papaya and helps with digestion when taken with food. Finally, I recommend testing of copper, zinc, and possibly for heavy metals if the problem persists. Often times depression arises from an imbalance in metals in the body.

There are many ways to treat depression naturally at a very low cost. I have worked with many people to help depression and get them enjoying life again. Please contact me to schedule either in-person or an online doctor consultation.

How to Stay Healthy? Fever as a Cure

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I hadn’t felt very well for a few days but one morning I woke up and could barely move. Every muscle in my body was screaming on fire. I had a fever. About 104 degrees F. I wasn’t going anywhere that day, I felt terrible but I was excited. My cat, Hickory, came to lay on the bed with me while I sweated there. He was new to the family and looked at me as if to say, “now you get it human, hang out and relax. You don’t need to work so hard.”

My fever was so high I was not thinking clearly. I knew there was a homeopathic remedy that would help me but I couldn’t remember which one in my state. I thought of something Dr. Thom said one day in class. “An acute illness is one that you either recover from on your own or you die.” I felt as if the latter would happen at any moment.

Eventually my fever broke and I not only started feeling better, I started feeling the best I had felt in my life. It wasn’t just the juxtaposition of the illness though. I felt as if something deeper had cleared within my body and soul. I knew that something had shifted in me.

How to Stay Healthy?

Many people with a fever that high would have called the doctor, or taken something to bring the fever down. But fevers aren’t necessarily a bad thing and it seems as if the wrong lessons may have been learned about fevers.  And aspirin may have had something to do with it. Let me explain.

World War I from 1914-1918 became  the bloodiest conflict to that point in human history. The combination of modern technology with battle tactics from the 18th century proved to be extremely deadly and indecisive. Soldiers would charge positions with machine guns only to be slaughtered senselessly in moments. At the first Battle of the Marne, over 10,000 French and British soldiers were killed in approximately 30 minutes. During the retreat, the German soldiers didn’t even fire upon the enemy they were so sickened by the slaughter.

Needless to say, when the armistice came on November 11th there was much celebration. People would go out and see their friends and family. Soldiers started returning home too. But as the soldiers returned some carried with them influenza. People started feeling feverish and achy. Aspirin had two different names on either side of the Atlantic Ocean and two different uses. In the US it was mostly used for pain. In Europe it was used to lower fevers. The soldiers learned the fever reducing usage from being at war in Europe and told family members to take some to reduce their fever. Of course, when they did that they felt better but they were still sick. Not only that, they were still contagious. They would increase infection rates during the celebration as they were seeing people exposing them to the virus.

Now this strain of influenza was particularly virulent and probably would have killed a lot of people. At that time, however, aspirin was considered a wonder drug and the dosage rate of aspirin was extremely high. When aspirin is combined with a viral infection it can cause a very deadly side illness called Reye’s Syndrome.   Many people are believed to have died from that. The aspirin was given to lower the fever but with Reye’s syndrome it doesn’t work and people can hemorrhage as a result. Of course, doctors didn’t learn that fact until many years later. They thought that the cause of death was the high fever. The lesson was that high fevers are deadly and we should lower them as quickly as possible. This was standard practice in medicine up until recently and paranoia of fevers continues to this day.

Fevers, though, allow our bodies to tune up. Fevers help the body fight off infections. The fever is caused by an immune response in the body and allows it to discover and fight invaders appropriately. Immune cells work more efficiently and make the viruses and bacteria less efficient. Our bodies clean out cells that have been taken over by viruses. The fever redistributes metals in the body so that two things happen. One, bacteria can’t feed on the metals to make themselves stronger and two, the excess metals can be eliminated by the liver. Not only does this help fight infection, it helps with mental health too as we will see in later blog posts. Fever is a good thing for the body.

Fortunately this lesson is slowly being unlearned. In fact, many medical schools are now teaching otherwise. The Yale School of Medicine recommendation for children is that you can wait out a fever up to 105 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s high!  But our bodies are designed to do that although it is generally not a very comfortable experience. As I lay there that day, Hickory next to me, with the 104-degree temperature, I felt I would die at any moment. But I didn’t and I was stronger for it.

Note: As a general rule, I ask patients to call me if the fever goes over 104 degrees Fahrenheit. I like to have a plan in place with them in case it spikes quickly but I’ve not had to intervene in over 10 years of practice.

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Portland, OR 97210
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Honolulu, HI 96813
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