Acupuncture Helps Heal Concussions
My first concussion happened at the tender age of 55. I was waterskiing when suddenly I was slingshotted across the lake. I had two thoughts in that instant. The first, ‘I am going way too fast this isn’t going to end well.’ The second was when my jaw hit the water on impact and I heard a crunch and thought, ‘How badly am I hurt?’
It turns out pretty badly. I had a concussion that went undiagnosed for three weeks. I attributed the incredible fatigue, nausea, dizziness and weight loss to COVID. It didn’t occur to me that I had a concussion until my good friend Dean, a neurologist at UBC confirmed it.
I did fortunately get some cranial sacral work to release the pressure on the back of my skull and relieve large bump at the base of my skull that had formed immediately following the accident.
What I didn’t realize at the time of my own concussion and have since learned from treating numerous patient’s is light, sound, large gatherings, movement can all exacerbate symptom.
They had to scale back their screen time and subsequently their work. They could not shop at big box stores with florescent lighting and noise. For these patients it was too much sensory overload. Going to noisy restaurants, large gatherings and night clubs were no longer possible. Their brain would get too fatigue and they would end up feeling rotten with headaches, dizziness, nausea, fatigue, vertigo.
The other side effect of a concussion that is not well documented or even discussed is the impact the injury has on the autonomic nervous system. I have 60+ year-old male patient who was an avid cyclist. A road bike racer who often cycled over 100km in a weekend with a high level group of cyclists.
This ended one day while out for a ride when a woman opened her car door. He hit the driver’s side door head first. He would spend that first year in a dark room barely moving. The second year was rounds of physio, massage, occupational therapy and still lots of rest. His once very full robust life of work, travel and exercise was scaled down to going to appointments and spending time alone.
He first came to see during the 3rd year of his concussion rehabilitation. His occupational therapist ( also a concussion survivor who I had treated) recognized his disregulated nervous system. Trauma like bike and car crashes causes our autonomic nervous system to get stuck in the fight, flight, freeze mode. The result cortisol keeps the heart rate elevated leading to increased heart rate and blood pressure. He suffered a stroke within a year of the accident.
Cortisol combined with adrenaline cause even more fatigue leading to disrupted sleep. We called this the “wired but tired” syndrome. You’re exhausted but you cannot fall asleep.
Emotionally is perhaps the most taxing on the system as patients experience anxiety, hypervigilance, irritability, difficulty relaxing or focusing. As they tense up so does their body. They experience chronic muscle tension which leads to increased frequency and intensity of headaches, neck and shoulder pain. A concussion is exhausting but add trauma to it and you have doubled down it’s impact on the brain and the body.
Acupuncture combined with reiki switched this patient back into his parasympathetic nervous stem – aks his rest and digest state where the body could heal itself. This patient would immediately fall asleep before I had even finished putting his needles in – so exhausted was his state. He would wake up 40 minutes later feeling calmer and more grounded.
The acupuncture and healing touch were critical to his healing. He would become “overtaxed” trying to regain his cycling ability or with his mental exercises. Our sessions worked to clear his buffer allowing him to continue to push his physical and emotional abilities.
