Trying something new, off to a "bumpy" start
 

I'm not sure why I'm writing this, but I feel like it might assuage my anxiety a bit, so here it goes.

I've travelled to Toronto (on 4 hours from where I live) for a couple of weeks before the new semester starts to try a course of laser therapy from Dr. Kahn's clinic (featured in The Brain's Way of Healing). I just arrived yesterday, found a cheap place to stay, and was planning on getting treatment and taking it easy for a couple weeks.

This morning was my second treatment. I'm laying face down with my face in a cradle, and a therapist applies the LED lights to various positions on my neck/brainstem (preliminary to actual laser treatments). The lights are on this flexible hard plastic band, with hard plastic handles. When the therapist was moving the bands, she hit my skull, just above the neck, with enough force to be very startling. I asked her to be gentler as my head is sensitive (why I don't say this to every person who comes within a foot of my head I don't know). I don't think it was that hard of a hit, but it's hard to say exactly.

After I asked her to be gentler I started getting the spinning dizzy sensation I get when lying down with my eyes closed, fairly extreme, and my body sort of felt "out of sorts" in a spiny, disoriented kinda way. This probably lasted for a couple minutes, and then I calmed down. I should add that I got this sensation during the first treatment with my head in that position, to a much lesser extent, so it's not totally new.

Can this kind of dizziness be caused by a spike in anxiety? It hurts now where she bumped it, which I get, and can happen with me even in a near miss, but I'm worried this spike of dizziness means that this was a significant impact, and I'm sort of quietly freaking out about it. I'm all alone in Toronto for the next two weeks, and this isn't how I wanted this "healing time" to start.

The past few months have been relatively more difficult for me head-wise and anxiety-wise, and my ability to just be with and let go of my anxiety is waning a little, although I generally recover from spikes in anxiety.

Yes, dizziness can be caused by a spike in anxiety. Plus, having your eyes closed removes the visual sensation that you are not moving or spinning so your only sense of movement is your vestibular system. Anxiety puts this system into overdrive as it tries to make sense.

Have you ever considered hypnotherapy to try to learn to not respond so severely to a contact with your head ? These upsetting contacts appear to be far below any threshold of pain or injury.

Did you see my post about LED Technologies products ? They offer the same wavelengths (Low infrared, near infrared and infrared) as Dr Kahn's products and clinic.

http://revivelighttherapy.com/collections/pain-relief

Laupala,
I am a few hours to Toronto, my physio in October began Laser therapy similar to what you describe. She had travelled to Toronto for instruction on how to use the equipment and was very excited that this might be of help for me. I have had over 20 treatments. The treatments had very little benefit. The therapist and I agreed that it was not successful. My husband had laser on his shoulder and had results and my physio said that the clinic are attended touted good success for concussion and head pain.

Like you I was dizzy and disoriented when I finished each treatment. I do not how expensive the treatments are and was thankful I did not have to pay for it. There was not really any improvement for me. I hope that you have better success.

Hi Almost,

Thanks for the response. I should clarify, I don't think I was dizzy and disoriented in response to the treatment itself. I get mildly dizzy when my head is in that position normally anyway, and experienced some of that my first visit, and then experienced fairly extreme (for me) dizziness and brief dis-orientation after the therapist bumped my head.

I'm anxious that this somewhat immediate effect means that this bump was a significant one that could have caused damage of some kind. Paradoxically, I'm all the more anxious because I don't want to be anxious starting off this treatment, to give it the best chance to work.


As far as my response to the 2 treatments themselves, so far it's just been feeling more tired, which could be expected after a 4 hour drive, and then being much more anxious today, but I think that's in response to the head bump, not the treatment itself. Someone else on NT also had a less than great experience with laser therapy, so it's good to have the clinic's positivity tempered with some realism. Still, I'm hopeful it might help. They're also working on a hamstring injury that predates the concussion, so even if it provides little head relief, hopefully it'll help the hamstring.

Yesterday I continued to feel progressively worse headache-wise, with pain not just restricted to where I was hit yesterday, but mainly on my top-of-the-head headaches, which were quite worse. I haven't had any more dizziness since the bout shortly after the head bump. Cognitively I feel a little more drained, but this could be explained by a spike in anxiety.

Emotionally I'm not doing so great, cycling through bouts of anxiety, crying, and feeling ok. I was hopeful that this could provide some relief (certainly not putting all my eggs in its basket so to speak, but hopeful that at least two weeks of refocusing just on my health could give me a boost before starting teaching). Now I'm worried that I won't be able to distinguish whether my dip in feeling good is from the head bump, and if so, how bad was it, or if I'm having an adverse reaction to the treatment. It doesn't help that I'm all alone in Toronto (and the weather is gloomy all week!).

Am I just freaking out needlessly? I guess that's a stupid question, as even if the bump did damage freaking out about it is always needless. The initial dizziness after the bump has me worried given that immediate symptoms like that are a sign of a concussion, but part of my also thinks that a spike in anxiety could cause them too. Any insight on this?

Have you ever tried meditation or mindfulness? They both have helped me to filter out unneeded (irrational and unhealthy) thoughts. A lot of people associate meditation as being something weird, but I think of it as a practice to help strengthen my mind. After doing it for a while, I can say that it is something I look forward to. Meditation has a number of health benefits including increased blood flow and dopamine release.

I also live mostly in the present now. I used to be depressed about the past and anxious about the future. Mindfulness allows me to be in the present and has helped me to be aware of my thoughts and discern if they are healthy or rational. I can better "move on" from events that can provoke anxiety. I encourage you to look into meditation and mindfulness if you haven't. It's best to start meditating with a guided audio/video. There are many on YouTube. Don't be discouraged if it's "hard" to do at first. If it is, then it means you're strengthening your "mental muscles." Struggle can be good. Additionally, there is no right or wrong way to meditate. Find what works for you. Lastly, it's easiest to do if you're a little tired. The morning, mid-afternoon, and before bed work best for me.

I too have the sensitivity to bumps and movements. I have found recently that exercise has helped with this. Sometimes all that I do is go up and down the stairs a few times to get my heart rate up. But if exercise makes symptoms worse, I've found it's best to tone it down to a level. Also, curcumin helps a little.

Hope this helps!
-Jake

Thanks for the response Jake, yeah, I've been meditating for almost 2 years now, and have found it to be very helpful, but at times like this I just can't do it as well. It seems all the tools I've learned from therapy and meditation and things go out the window, and I'm just overcome with fear and grief and not being ok with the uncertainty of it all. I know it will pass, but in times like these I just feel so weak and like such a shell of the person I used to be.

I considered myself a strong person before, but clearly that strength was never tested all that much. I truly do marvel at how you've coped, having a limited understanding of your situation from reading your posts here. I'd like to say it gives me hope, and it does at times, but right now it just makes me feel bad about how I'm coping honestly.

Mark, somehow missed your post. I have in fact tried hypnotherapy, probably 7 sessions. Did not provide much benefit other than feeling fairly relaxed. I'm currently trying EMDR to help with this. I'm getting better at brushing off impacts that I can believe are benign, but this one seemed more significant, perhaps because it was so startling since I was trying to relax, I don't know, but given how I've felt the past couple days it's worse than other minor impacts, which normally just manifest in pain where I hit/thought I hit my head.

Thanks for the LED info. While this step is part of Kahn's protocol, it's not the whole thing. A series of LED treatments appear to be a sort of "warm-up", saturating the tissues with light, before applying something more like a laser-pointer that is an actual laser, not just LED. Whether this makes a significant difference, who knows.

Laser or LED based near infrared does not make a difference. The light wave is the same. Laser just means the beam of light is narrow. Problem is there is only so much light energy the tissue can tolerate. My PT has a laser based light therapy system that can be set to different wavelengths. The LED based systems have LEDs with the specific wavelength fixed with a small variation. In LEDs, 660 nm, 830 nm & 840 nm wavelengths would be something like 655 to 665 nm, 825 to 835 nm, and 835 to 845 nm. In Laser Diodes the specific wave length is achieved. The research does not show a difference in therapeutic value.

The laser is actually a Laser Diode as compared to Light Emitting Diode. The difference is primarily the lens and focus of the light. The technical differences would not make a difference in a therapeutic situation. The effective use of LED is within 10% or less of Laser Diode. If you needed to aim at a very small target, Laser would be better. But, the therapeutic use of near infrared light therapy is over a large area so the narrow focus is not necessary.

It looks like there is some selling the sizzle at Kahn's clinic.

The key issue I think you need to deal with is the risk level of impacts. Your startle response likely causes more G force than almost any of these impact that are causing your concern. Even the G force of your startle head jerks would be well below the threshold of injury unless you were jerking your head back and forth repeatedly.

You may benefit from some touch desensitization training. This would be something like sitting or laying with your eyes closed as someone touches you at random spots on your head and neck. Then, over time, that contact force is increased from a finger touch to a finger tap to a finger snap to a drop of an empty plastic water bottle on your head. Some of these touches would be without warning and some would have a warning. "I'm going to tap my finger on your head." This would be a sort of phobia conditioning program. A phobia specialist could lead you through this.

The same could be done with sounds to reduce your sound triggered startle.

EMDR is for PTSD by attempting to separate the memories from the response. I don't understand how it can help you with anxiety. It was offered to me after I was assaulted combined with some mental reprogramming to see the assaulter's position.

Some low level lasers have multiple diodes to treat larger areas.. Many were developed for veterinarians first.. so horses, cows etc.. probably race or show horses brought it into play because of a big money sport..and no drugs allowed for certain sport/competitions.

The one my chiro used had a 2-3" head , so multiple diodes , I didn't look at it more closely or get the brand name, I was just happy it worked so fast to reduce/stop my pain...

There is the faster treatment time frame to consider with low level laser vs LED light.
per area - laser -20-30 seconds vs LED 20/30 mins. or more.

* I'm comparing the time frames for me - to my elbow, shoulder, wrist, neck etc- the low level laser was so fast..
For head injury might be a different thing totally.

I bought a Light Relief Infrared Pain Relief Device years ago - http://www.amazon.com/Light-Relief-I...dp/B000GAAANG0
It did not even come close to comparing to the Low level laser relief for me.
I could not tell the pain was less , the warming felt good, it probably did something good inside , but not a " wow, it doesn't hurt anymore"...
Of course low level laser prices start @ 1000.00 or so .. so I'm still waiting for the price to drop..

From the information they publish, the Light Relief system you purchased is nothing like the LED Technologies system, in both power or wavelength. Light Relief is broad spectrum infrared. It is basically old school. 450-495 nm, 620-750 nm, 750-1000 nm. (4 blue, 31 red and 24 infrared)
The valuable wave length is near infrared.

The 848 nm wavelength is targeted by the latest technology.

The Light Relief system is just a low power penetrating heat system using broad spectrum heat.. The laser system sounds like it was a higher power deep heat system. My chiro used a system like than on my back in the early 90's.

The technology of targeting the wavelength has greatly improved the results. It appears Dr Kahn started with a broader spectrum wavelength and may now be more targeted. He alludes to a dual function, short term and longer term response. His information says his LED systems alternate wavelengths. The Laser diode probes do only one wavelength. It is frustrating to understand these systems with limited technical specifications. Lots of selling the sizzle. Not much real data.

The LED Technologies system is not to be used for more than 14 minutes twice a day. The near infrared systems at the targeted 848 nm, even Laser Diode, trigger the mytochondria for cell growth and repair. Results do not manifest for a week or two after many repeated treatments. It has 56 848 nm LEDs and 4 red LEDs. If you want a different wavelength for the other benefits, it requires a separate LED emmitting head.

The low level laser therapy systems used by local chiros and PTs provide quick warmth and pain relief. They use obvious visible red light, not the invisible near infrared. That would not be the same as the slow mitrochondria based improvements of near infrared wavelengths.

I'd be interested if Laupala can get some technical specs of the system they use. Wavelength, power, etc.

Mark,
I'll ask for more details at some point and let everyone know. I agree that kind of desensitization training could be helpful, but it honestly sounds scary. In theory I get that small head bumps aren't that big of a deal, but my experience has suggested otherwise. I made a thread about the ceiling head bump noted in my signature over a year ago, asking about the significance of these, and you said (not calling you out here or anything, just trying to illustrate my experience) that it wasn't anything to worry about, but that bump preceded a major worsening, and I haven't felt as good as I did before that since then.

Another instance was falling while xc skiing. I didn't hit my head, and didn't really have that great a startle response because I was surrounded by kids I was coaching and didn't want to freak out in front of them. But, once I got home, I started to feel worse, which precipitated anxiety. It's usually an increase in symptoms that causes anxiety in my experience, not necessarily the other way around (although I get that these can be difficult to distinguish).

Further, I've had anxiety spikes unrelated to head stuff (relationship issues) that do cause an increase in symptoms, but only very temporarily, whereas head bumps of relative significance cause much longer lasting setbacks. So, it's hard for me to rationalize that it's just anxiety when other instances of just anxiety don't produce the same effect as a head bump + anxiety.

I get that this is really complicated and all kinds of other factors could be at play, but given my experience it's just really hard to fully believe that these head bumps aren't doing some kind of damage, whether to my brain or skull or nerves or whatever, that will result in a setback. I know I'd be better off without this belief, but part of me just simply thinks it's true, and I have a hard time shaking things that I think are true.

You may have trained your system to respond to bumps/contacts. You'd be surprised how the cascade of brain chemistry can snowball quickly. It's a Pavlov's dog kind of response. If a dog can be conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell, any sensory stimulation can cause a reaction without a sound factual basis for the reaction. Early on, it may have been anxiety induced but with enough reactions, your body can learn to respond even when there is not a valid reason or anxiety. As an evolutionist, you should have learned about conditioned responses. But, maybe that is limited to animals, not plants.

So, deconditioning has great value.

FYI, It only takes 3 repetitions to condition a reaction. It take 7 breaks from the reaction to start to break the conditioning.

Maybe your EMDR training needs to focus on these head contact issues.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying your reactions are not real. They are very real. That is what makes them so difficult. But, you can condition train yourself out of the response.

Getting burned by a hot object becomes a conditioned response. The next time, the brain connects the pain to the sense of heat and retracts.

Your brain senses a contact and a perceived related danger and reacts as if there was an injury. It goes into a protect mode with the related symptoms.

I don't think you are going to get much better until you can stop this cycle. Empirical evidence shows this to be the case. A local brain injury PT sees this as a major factor that effects recovery. He told us the literature shows this to be true.

The simple physics of impact forces show these contacts to be of no measurable or calculateable value.

Hi Laupala. How has your laser treatment been going this last week? Any improvements?

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It has been a rough week and a half or so. I calmed down a bit from the head bump on my second treatment, but continued to feel worse than when I arrived, and this became especially exacerbated towards the end. The doctors decided that I was likely being treated too intensely (I had 9 treatments over the course of 11 days). Normally I guess they just treat patients on an every-other day basis, but make exceptions for out-of-towners.

In general I feel like my threshold for overstimulation has gone way down (i.e. I get overstimulated much more easily, like I probably shouldn't be writing this as the amount of time on the computer it's taking is exacerbating symptoms), anxiety way up (not necessarily from the treatments...), and the past couple days I've felt slightly nauseated, which is a totally new symptoms to me, probably unrelated, but who knows.

So, I came home early yesterday, with a rental unit that I can treat myself with at my own pace, once I "stabilize" after taking a bit of a break. I do think the treatments have helped with a longtime hamstring injury I have, so I rented it primarily for that, and we'll see if a slower schedule on the neck/head works. I wish I would've known this was possible/probably a better path for me from the get go, so in that sense i'm disappointed with Dr. Kahn and co., but I guess they wanted to monitor me closely while I was starting out. He says this kind of reaction is rare, but he has seen it before in a handful of patients, particularly 17-25 yr old males for whatever reason.

On my way home from Toronto I passed through my NUCCA chiro and saw her, figuring I'd save the trip since I was passing through. It's about 90 minutes from me, but I only go once every few months now since I've been "holding my adjustment" for a year. I saw her in December, wanting to be sure that I was in alignment before starting the laser treatment, and I was. Well, turns out I was out of alignment for the first time in a year, could have been the bump (it was right above C-1), or something else.

I was really feeling pretty crummy yesterday with the driving, and was seriously considering getting a hotel along the way, but actually felt better, and good enough to finish the drive after the adjustment. That was new to me, as in the past I've not experienced much after adjustments, making me think it was pretty much useless. Today I'm feeling fairly bad again, which is expected I guess. I'll likely wait till I calm down to see if trying the lasers works again - perhaps I felt so bad while in Toronto because I was out of alignment - who knows... my priority now is resting up to get back to feeling "reasonable" for the start of the semester.