How I got over my Post-Concussion Syndrome with a diet
 

** I'll just make my own thread to share information with you. It's a little long but if you want to beat concussions, read all the way through. To recap what my concussion experience was like, I got a knee to to the head in a hockey game in April 8th 2014 and wasn't cured til April 25th 2015 so over a year. I was 16 and this changed my life

After the knee to the head I had bad symptoms for a month (headache, confusion fog, nausea) and I finally started feeling good again. In about early May I got back into sports too quick and header'd the ball in soccer and my symptoms came back for a week and then I was good again. I played basketball and then a light elbow to the head brought my symptoms back for a week and then I was good again. Blows to the head that originally wouldn't affect me whatsoever would do a great deal of a damage. Basically this continuous cycle of re-aggravating my concussion continued til March 2015. I was paranoid and anxious about everything near my head. I finally found this website and dug up information from Dan Higgs, a guy that I give credit for giving my life back to me.

His concussion situation was similar to mine but instead he always had a dull headache and extremely bad sensitivity, so bad he couldn't walk properly because the light jolts from stepping shook his head. Here is how him and I were cured:

The **diet is an anti-inflammation diet used to treat leaky gut. Most people eat a diet that consists of meats, vegetables, fruits, wheat and grains and dairy. Our bodies through the history of evolution only ate things from the wild. All our ancestors ate were meats, vegetables and fruits. Any foods that you can cultivate will cause inflammation as your body isn't biologically used to it. Think about it, tens and thousands of years of our ancestors eating natural whole foods vs. a couple thousand years of cultivated foods. Your body just getting energy from the natural foods is what it's used to. Gluten(especially), soy and dairy are the main contributors to inflammation with various people around the world intolerant to them.

Inflammation in the stomach caused by these foods cover the villi (structure that absorbs nutrients) and makes nutrient absorption less efficient. When you get concussions or brain injuries, swelling(inflammation) occurs in the brain and to heal it, it needs the proper recovery of nutrients and rest. Proper absorption of nutrients can be achieved by mainly getting rid of Gluten, Dairy and Soy.

Another cause of inflammation is the spike in blood sugar. When you're hungry, your blood sugar is at the bottom. As soon as you eat something, it will elevate. If you eat something processed with a lot of preservatives or something sugary, it will spike your blood sugar a lot. This spike causes inflammation so that's why it's important to not get hungry and eat natural foods.

Weight can be lost on this diet regardless of the calories consumed as the consistent eating of small meals will speed your metabolism up like crazy. In which can be a good thing depending on your fitness goals. Since I'm a growing teenage boy, I already have a fast metabolism and this increased it tremendously, I was always hungry and eating.

The list of foods to eat, and list of foods to avoid can be found **
This diet is quite torturous as it lacks flavor and is very plain. Coffee addicts are going to have a hard time as caffeine is cut out and so is alcohol. I was on this diet for 6 weeks and I felt better each week. Depending on how bad your situation is, it may take longer. It took Dan Higgs 8 months for him to say he was completely healed but his situation was much worse than mine.

I urge anyone who's serious and has given up hope on concussion recovery please take a try at this diet. I was skeptical at first wondering how what I ate could affect my brain but I became educated. With a period of time of healthy eating and rest, you can fully recover and take back control of your life. **

This sounds like the Paleo diet. You said "Weight can be lost on this diet regardless of the calories consumed as the consistent eating of small meals will speed your metabolism up like crazy." The myth of eating small meals to speed up your metabolism has been soundly discredited. In fact, eating small meals can pattern one's insulin system to be out of balance and lead to insulin resistance.

I googled Dan Higgs and only found information about Dan Higgs, a musician and some very objectionable posts.

You can have whatever opinion you want on my method of treatment, it worked for me. I'm not a doctor but I'm just saying what it did for me and it'll allow people that are interested in this try it out.

I never said it did not work for you. I just commented about whether the many small meals concept leads to weight loss. Research says they does not.

Your diet looks like it also may be tied to the Mediterranean Diet that CAN help with weight loss. The lack of flavor can also lead to losing weight as portions can tend to be smaller. There is a belief that anti-inflammatory diets help with weight loss due to the concept that inflammation can cause weight gain.

Glad to hear you are doing better. You appeared to have quite a rough time in the earlier days.

Ah, I see I actually looked it up and it turns out it really is a myth. I was really into bodybuilding and they always said stuff like eating more frequently leads to a faster metabolism but I guess that's busted. I guess if you do make your meals smaller and more frequent, you could be eating less calories depending on the size of the meals. Regardless, as long as you reduce inflammation all over your body, brain inflammation will go down which is the main purpose of the diet.

Hello Zhaomayne,
Thank you for sharing your experience. I am so glad that this diet helped you. I also noticed improvement when I followed gluten and dairy free diet for couple of months. I got little disoriented and started eating it again. I think I should give one more try :)