Omega 3 supplements are the best treatment after a brain injury, and the sooner after a brain injury you start it, the better (research shows that starting Omega 3 a few days after a concussion reduces brain damage by 98%). Of course other supplements are also important for brain recovery and metabolism after an injury (see Mark in Idaho's sticky thread for some good recommendations), but if Omega 3 is started soon enough (a few days or a week) after a brain injury, the recovery will be amazing (it still helps after a few months or years, but it helps less than after a few days and a higher dose is needed for a longer time).

Anyway, if you have done some research about Omega 3, you probably heard only of benefits and positive outcomes of use. And you might have also heard that very high dose Omega 3 brought people with severe TBI to normal daily functioning. All of these sound great, but there are some things you won't hear on these stories of amazing recovery.

First of all, Omega 3 greatly suppresses the immune system. That happens because one of the fats in Omega 3, EPA, is a potent anti-inflammatory agent. After some time of using high dose Omega 3, your immune system will be weak and inefficient. This is because the immune system relies on inflammatory processes to fight off viruses and bacteria, and EPA prevents these inflammatory processes. Also, EPA accumulates in your body and stays there for a long time (it binds to fat cells), so the weakened state of your immune system can persist for weeks after stopping high dose Omega 3 and this can be very dangerous.

Another risk is oxidative stress. Omega 3 fats, EPA and DHA, are highly sensitive to oxygen and will oxidize easily inside your body, damaging cells and causing a large variation of health issues - some may be irreversible or show up later in life (though this can be avoided by taking an anti-oxidant together with Omega 3, such as Vitamin E). Oxidative stress is a serious issue, especially after a concussion.

The major problem is that your body needs balance between Omega 3 and Omega 6 oils. When taking high dose Omega 3, you are completely messing up with that balance and that can cause very serious health issues, at some rare cases even cancer.

And if you are interested in how I've been personally physically harmed by Omega 3, here is my story:

I started taking 18 grams of Omega 3 per day for a few days to speed up recovery from my mTBI (started taking the Omega 3 exactly one week ago). I'm taking this high dose because I've heard that higher doses contribute to faster PCS recovery and aren't dangerous. Anyway, from the first day I noticed a great improvement - finally the symptoms of my PCS are much, much milder and less noticeable (they still come up during times of stress, though). I'm much less confused, less dazed and feeling generally better. My daily headaches (which is a common symptom among PCS sufferers) have almost completely vanished. It feels as if I've already recovered 70% from my PCS (last week before the Omega 3 it was maybe 20%). I have not completely recovered from PCS, but I feel like the Omega 3 have made me much closer to recovery from it!

Sounds great, right? It is great, but sadly I notice some other scary side effects from the use of that high dose. The biggest thing that scares me right now is hearing loss.

Yesterday morning, I woke up nearly deaf in my left ear. I first noticed it when I spoke to my sister, and this was frightening to feel that I can hear myself speaking only in the right ear! The day prior to this, I took 21-24 grams of Omega 3 (18 grams at the morning and another 3-6 grams 30 minutes before going to sleep).

Such a rapid hearing loss never happened to me. I've started researching online, and have seen that sudden hearing loss might be caused from a few different causes, one of them being a virus that attacks the ear. I then checked a little bit about Omega 3 and its possible dangers (thought it might be related, and found out that it is immuno-suppresive. When I started taking the Omega 3 last week, I had a very bad cold which was probably caused by a virus. It didn't take me a lot of time understand that this hearing loss may be indirectly related to my use of very high dose Omega 3. I think that this high dose Omega 3 regimen have greatly weakened my immune system, and as a result the virus spread much more easily in my body and attacked more organs, including my left ear. In other words, the Omega 3 just depressed my immune system and let the virus spread more aggressively in my body, possibly causing the virus to attack my ear and cause that sudden hearing loss (I've read that this sudden hearing loss is most common in the winter, meaning that a cold/flu virus causes it in most patients).

I took my Omega 3 high dose today too and it just worsened my hearing loss. I feel a great difference right now in my hearing in the left ear, and am pretty sure that it a result of the high dose Omega 3 use.

This might sound strange or exaggerated to you, but don't forget that I am using huge doses of Omega 3, enough for it to be a serious hazard for my body. I'll stop the Omega 3 for a while (or at least reduce dosage), see my ENT soon and hope for well... The fact that my hearing loss only started a little bit after taking 24 grams of Omega 3 makes me believe that they are related to each other.

My point here is - Omega 3 is good and even essential for recovery from brain injury, but if you are taking high doses you are going to wreck havoc on your body. My personal advice is to never go over 5-6 grams of Omega 3 per day, and absolutely not 15-20 grams per day.

Are you taking Omega 3 supplements daily to aid the recovery from your concussion? If yes, at what doses and for how long have you been taking it?

Also, do you agree that too much Omega 3 can be hazardous?

Thanks,
-ProAgonist

I already posted my suggestion to you on your other thread to
only take 2 or 3 of the regular strength fish oil a day.

Also a blocked ear feeling and lowered hearing can be due to
swollen throat --closing off the Eustachian tubes that vent the middle ear. If you still have tonsils, these can swell up and block that opening too. (adenoids also may block them).

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/post1114475-22.html

Thank you, I've replied to your suggestion at the other thread.

I feel like the hear loss is serious, but this isn't much related to this forum and I'll see an ENT for it.

My point with is thread is to warn people from the hazards of taking a too high dose of Omega 3 supplements, which might be serious.

Hi, I was reading your blog and found it very interesting.

My neurosurgeon recommended high potency Omega 3 for me after my lumbar laminectomy and spinal fusion.
He stated that the ones on the market today, otc, have additives that aren't giving you the specific benefits your body needs.

He recommended a high potency for me that for the first week I take 2 capsules in the morning and 2 capsules around 8pm. Then for second week and there after, 1 capsule in the AM and 1 capsule at 8 pm for the high potency is too great for the body long term. I have been taking pure Omega 3 for a month now and have not had any trouble.

When I see him at my six month follow-up,I'm anxious to see my progression. I will see what he thinks of being on it long term.

Hope you feel better soon.

@ProAgonist:

You know, I would find it really helpful if you posted the links where you get your information.

Medical information changes rapidly and also various sites regurgitate other places and often the information can become skewed or that copied old and out dated.

For example I searched "fish oil immune" and found this:

http://www.inquisitr.com/599029/fish...tem-new-study/

An example of sites I find problematic are LiveStrong-- it can be accurate on some things but not others.

This subject is commonly covered on PubMed. We have a link at the top of our pages here in fact so you can get there easily:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25471799
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25244229

Dr. A Simopoulos MD has 55 papers currently on PubMed:
Just type in "Simopoulos Omega-3" into the keyword search.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21279554

While I think 18 grams was unwise to start with, there is no reason you should avoid Omega-3s... in moderate amounts.
2-3 capsules a day is quite a small amount.
These oils are FOOD not a drug... they are consumed in larger amounts than vitamins and minerals, because they become building blocks of our tissues and are used just about everywhere in the body.

Rodent studies are interesting and less expensive to run. But mice and rats have a different metabolism when it comes to Essential fats. They require much higher % of dietary Omega-6's than humans do. Also statistically mice and rat studies only pan out about 60% referrable to humans. So they have to be evaluated carefully. They are the beginning and not the end for making conclusions. Further work is always needed after studies using rodents.

Laura Stevens at Purdue University has been researching diet and ADHD for about 25yrs. It was her study I used to initially further research Omega-3's.
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/71/1/327S.full
To learn more about them from authored books:
Donald Rudin MD --The Omega-3 oils
Barry Sears PhD-- Enter the Zone (explanations of EFA chemistry and diet)
Artemis Simopoulos MD-- The Omega Plan

Most of these books are old by now...but are good basic learning tools to understand this complex subject and chemistry. There has been much more recent work done and probably newer books out by now.
These older books are on Amazon used...for a very low price.
Some libraries may have them too.
You will learn how some major drugs also work, by reading well on this subject. Aspirin, NSAIDs, steroids, and insulin all impact the synthesis of the various cytokines in the Cox-1 and Cox-2 family. (they used to be called prostaglandins PGE1 and PGE2).

And going to an ENT is a very good idea. Many of your head symptoms (including the blocked ears now) may be a sign of sinus congestion/infection, or another upper respiratory inflammation.

mrsD,

Thank you very much for your help and suggestions, but I want to say again that the purpose of getting the Omega 3 from the beginning was to speed up recovery from my PCS, not to treat ADHD. The concussion recovery is much more important to me right now because the PCS worsens my ADHD, sleep quality and many other things.

You are right that 18 grams a day were too much. I stopped taking Omega 3 for now because these huge amounts greatly suppressed my immune system, but I will return to taking it very soon at lower doses.

Regarding of where I got the links of possible damages of Omega 3 daily regimen (almost all of the major risks are attributed to high/very high dose usage), here they are:

Low doses of fish oil may have a mild immunosuppression in humans:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1833105

Polyunsaturated Fats Suppress The Immune System:
http://www.functionalps.com/blog/201...immune-system/

Omega 3 & PUFA’s: What No One Wants To Talk About:
http://metabolichealing.com/omega-3-...to-talk-about/

Thanks for the links, ProAgonist.

PUFAs (polyunsaturated oils) are typically Omega-6's. Used in frying... transfats predominated in modern diets until very recently, being a result of WWII. Margarine contained them because of a lack of butter. These artificial fats are very damaging to the body and mess up the metabolism of "good fats".

Your first link used 6 people, and measured some in vitro factors, which are never considered really valuable. Fish oil blocks the formation of AA which is implicated in vascular damage, and other things. But in babies and children, it is very valuable for some brain development and other things. It is EXCESS AA which is fueled by high Omega-6 content in food (mostly from frying and salad dressings) that becomes problematic. So this study, like many that appear in research today about food and supplements needs to be redone with larger sample sizes, and careful control of the subjects' food intake.

Your Second link discusses PUFA which is mainly excess consumption of Omega-6 oils. (Sunflower, corn, safflower).

Your 3rd link discusses the balance of Omega-3 to Omega-6 which we need as mammals. All Omega-3 or all Omega-6 is not the ratio we need to live normally. We need 1:1 as close as possible.

As far as you are concerned, I see you have ADHD which may respond to fixing any imbalance in your diet. Side effects of headache, depression, dizziness may come from the drugs used to treat ADHD today. These side effects cloud any further symptoms you may have from a concussion.

So my suggestion holds, as far as your turning your attention to researching ADHD further. Wouldn't it be wonderful that you could accomplish both goals, the head injury recovery and the ADHD simply and restore yourself?

Use keywords like
ADHD Omega-3
ADHD essential fatty acids
ADHD supplements
DHA and the brain

We used a product with more DHA in each capsule than EPA.
It was made by Carlson's and called Super DHA. You can buy DHA only supplements today. Some are targeting women with babies, but anyone can use them.( My son only used one of these a day + one flax oil capsule + one regular strength evening primrose capsule--this was a modest amount of all three.)

This one tends to be less expensive:
http://www.enfamil.com/products/enfa...%2Bsupplements

This is one example, there are many others with different costs:
http://www.amazon.com/Source-Natural.../dp/B000GFJKAK

However, since brain inflammation does occur in head injury, some EPA is a good idea.

So the bottom line is to use 2 or 3 regular strength fish oil (fish oil comes in many ways including concentrated forms),
OR
a DHA concentrate
Plus some magnesium (not oxide)
and some B-complex -- B-Right by Jarrow is a very good starting formula.
You need the magnesium and B-complex to metabolize the fish oils properly.

And you need to remove all transfats in processed foods and oils for frying. A good frying substitute is Ghee, which is neutral and not damaging if used prudently. Another oil for cooking is canola.

This is the more sensible route to take.