The neurologist is ignorant, as they often are. You need another doctor.
What he said about MRI is actually true. 1.5T MRI (the standard field strength of the scan) is very poor at picking up signs of damage from mild traumatic brain injury.
3T MRI and 7T MRI have a higher field strength and are therefore more likely to detect injury. Diffusion Tensor Imaging uses MRI to show axonal tracts and is actually really good at showing damage from mTBI. But it's pretty hard to get!
Nuclear SPECT imaging shows brain blood perfusion. Generally, patients with mTBI will show hypoperfusion or perfusion deficits corresponding with the injury, and its often rather global. Most doctors can't read them though unfortunately.
QEEG is also really good at picking up damage, and Mark raves about it for TBI - at least as a diagnostic tool.
RidingRollerCoaster, I very strongly support what you have said. You make perfect sense, it's all physiological in the end. The initial injury causes damage, and then secondary processes cause further injury as alluded to by
lyndianne. The injured brain is then unable to function as it should causing a very wide range of problems.
As Mark has said, anxiety can appear spontaneously after mTBI as the brain is damaged and not functioning properly - I discuss more below. What psychologists would call "psychological" has a very real physiologic basis.
If you really want to look at it from a psychology perspective it's completely normal to get anxious and depressed about this level of damage to ones consciousness. This is probably the most horrific injury that you can get, short of something terminal, and often people take their own lives because life itself has become a living hell. I got close, thankfully I came back from the abyss. Getting depressed and anxious is normal, BUT, as I discovered you have to treat it.
Galaxy112, there are drugs that are good for TBI and those that aren't. Benzodiazepines (Xanax being one) are contraindicated for TBI as they interfere with recovery - you don't want anything that binds to the GABAa receptors. That Dr was foolish to prescribe this for you. Are you still on the Xanax?
Interestingly Gabapentin and Pregabalin are fine despite being designed to mimic the chemical structure of the neurotransmitter GABA - not binding to GABAa receptors. Apparently they affect voltage-dependent calcium channels in the central nervous system, which is why they are very helpful for some pain conditions. They are also very relaxing
BDNF, some of the physiological problems that can be caused by traumatic brain injury:
[LIST][*]Damage to brain tissue (white and grey matter)[*]Reduced production of important neurotransmitters such as serotonin[*]Hormone Deficiency[*]Failure in regulating brain blood flow[*]Imbalance of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system[LIST]
These (and others I'm sure I've missed), lead to all the symptoms we get.
The brain can heal itself to some extent, and you can treat a lot of these problems. And it's only getter better, but it seems most Doctors are not up to date.
There are two different types of treatment for TBI, one addresses the damage to tissue, the others improve the
functioningof the brain. Do not dismiss functional treatment, though it is obviously very important to repair the structural damage if you can. Please see my post in the thread titled "Need Answers Please" where I discuss hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and briefly stem cells for this purpose.
The brain also has the ability to heal itself somewhat over time too, and it was discovered recently that hyperbaric oxygen is merely acting on a whole bunch of regenerative genes, essentially as a form of gene therapy. Watch this video if you're interested, the sound quality is terrible I'm sorry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hm61cbhivs4
So after addressing the structural damage as best you can you then need to optimise the functioning of your various processes in the central nervous system.
Hormone production is often affected by TBI, and I would recommend you look up Dr Mark Gordon. Checkout this Joe Rogan podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbxPxFiOIKc
It's a fantastic podcast, really really good and I clicked with what the vet said about just not being yourself. I am unfortunately not in America at the moment, so don't have access to Dr Gordon, but hopefully this will change as I would love to get all my hormone levels tested.
Neurotransmitters can be altered through drug therapy, though this is quite polarising, some are very against anti-depressents. I was for most of my life, now I think that it's just like altering hormone levels, and should be done cautiously.
If you are anxious and depressed, which I'd be surprised if you weren't, there are many things that can be done. I have had a fantastic experience with Sertraline, it has made me happy again and eliminated a lot of my anxiety. It has even improved my cognitive function, which will definitely be lowered by depression and anxiety. Meditation is also helpful, however honestly I found the drugs better
CBT can be helpful apparently, though I have no personal experience in this area.
If you are having problems regulating brain blood flow, and problems with imbalance of sympathetic and parasympathetic, there is a very easy test and training program to fix this. It's summarised as "The Buffalo Protocol". Here's a webinar provided by Dr Leddy on the subject:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRS8ZqiL060
See the Vitamins Sticky, this will help your brain in it's self-healing somewhat. Though if you are looking to take SSRIs, be careful to not take any supplement that is a MAOI, such as curcumin or rhodiola. Many herbs have a MAOI effect so it's pretty dicey sometimes.
There are even drugs that have a strong neuroprotective effect if taken immediately after TBI. First and foremost is NAC, or N-acetyl cysteine. During my research over the past 9 months I have found many other promising ones too but I use NAC as my go to neuroprotective. Here is the initial case study showing amazing results:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/art...l.pone.0054163
Admittedly the study only came out last year, but I'm still angry the medical profession was not aware of this sooner - and other neuroprotectives. I strongly believe that if I had followed the regimen prescribed in the NAC study, I wouldn't have wasted 8 months of my life living in hell.