I recently read about neuronal excitability following mTBI. In particular, how this can cause visual disturbances like starbursts, light streaking and ghosting (illusory palinopsia).

I have a couple of questions for anyone who knows about this and is willing to reply:

1) can neuronal excitability correct itself in time? Since a hit to the head excites certain neurons...can they calm down by themselves in time?

2) is there anything one can do to naturally regulate neuronal excitability (such as by increasing blood flow to the brain, the right supplements, L-Theanine etc)?

Apologies of these questions are a bit silly. There is so much information out there that I tend to get lost in it. I also realise that my concussion symptoms are quite unusual (very niche visual disturbances).

Many thanks for your time and help.

Merope

Merope,

Read the vitamins sticky.

B-12, and folic acid are helpful in rebuilding the myelin sheath that covers nerve fibers. Much of concussion damage is due to strains and breaks in the myelin sheath. The myelin sheath heals very slowly.

When the myelin sheath is damaged, nerve signals can short circuit and leak out between neighboring nerve fibers.

Star burst and streaking can be the optic nerve fibers short circuiting or other issues. Light tails as the eye looks away from a bright light can be the nerve cell not releasing the image to be replaced with a new image. Everybody has it so some extent based on the brightness of the object.

The ghosting can be a serotonin reuptake issue. The neuron does not release the neurotransmitter fully across the synapse and reuptakes some of that signal to be presented a second time.

Your anxieties and OCD like thoughts are common to this neurotransmitter reuptake issue. I take 5-HTP and L-Theanine to help moderate this. It works better that high doses of an SSRI drug.

These issues are magnified in you because you pay attention to them. Most of them have always been happening to a lesser extent. Now, your attention to them is in overdrive and you struggle to ignore them. CBT, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, can help you redirect your attention. You can also learn your own thought responses to them.

I don't make these comments from a purely 'these are the facts' sense with no understanding of how they impact a person. I live with these issues and have lived with some of them for decades. I know I can choose to pay attention or I can choose to ignore them. I recognize they happened or are continually happening and stop trying to explain/understand them and choose to move on with life.

I do what I can with good sleep and healthy eating and supplements and accept the result as the best I can achieve and move on.

Maybe this analogy will help.
If all you have is an old car that uses oil and gets lousy gas mileage but otherwise runs, if you keep it full of oil and gas, you can still get to your destination. In fact, your destination does not care how you got there in most cases.

Thank you so much (once again) for your informative response. I will look into the vitamins sticky and do some more research on l-Theanine. I heard some people saying that it caused visual snow for them—really don’t want to be dealing with that as well!

I like the car analogy, it helps put things into perspective a little better.

I have taken L-Theanine since 2012. I have never had a problem. I take 200 mgs.

There are no confirmed or direct side effects of consuming L-theanine.

If you keep researching everything, you will find somebody who says something negative about everything. Please don't let OCD take over your life.