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

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.