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Explaining the Myths and the Myth-Makers Behind the Concussion Protocol

Bloodletting became popular in early American history; Benjamin Rush, a prominent Philadelphia physician and a signer of the Declaration of Independence fiercely advocated its use. One critic wrote: “By virtue of his social and professional prominence, his position as teacher and his facile pen, Benjamin Rush had more influence upon American medicine and was more potent in propagation and long perpetuation of medical errors than any man of his day. To him, more than any other man in America, was due the great vogue of vomits, purging, and especially of bleeding, salivation and blistering, which blackened the record of medicine and afflicted the sick almost to the time of the Civil War.”

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: Concussion Protocols are rooted in a series of medical myths: the “best treatment” for a Concussion is recognition, rest, time, symptom reduction, second-hit avoidance, information, and certainty that most concussions heal on their own. So, just give them time. This medical negligence allows too many victims of brain wounds to slowly atrophy and die of complications attributable to untreated wounds to the brain.

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Bloodletting, or phlebotomy, was one of those centuries long medical activities that finally surrendered to modern science. Loss of too much blood under medical supervision probably killed George Washington. Though still used in some accredited interventions, we have learned much more about disease and are aware of the grip that guessing and hoping and “truth” held over physicians. Gratefully, time has helped advance the practice of healing. But not where concussions are concerned.

Myths are stories told to get people to believe. They are widely held but mostly false ideas and beliefs. Historically they are marketing devices to convince a whole class of people to believe and act in a certain way. Stories told long enough become “truth.”

Bear with me; this all relates to why “appropriate health care professionals” worldwide with certified Concussion expertise get it so wrong, and en masse.

Memes, which circulate units of cultural information much in the same way genes pass on biological information, can become pathological when they propagate false ideas. They become like “thought viruses” that have to be fought and eradicated. Centuries of medical myths have killed. As Heston and Gosselin have put it: Putting logic ahead of the scientific method, excessively relying upon expert opinion, and an incomplete understanding of biostatistics all contribute to the etiology of a medical myth.

Yuval Noah Harari in NEXUS makes a salient point: when religion and medicine together create a myth, it is liable to stick around for centuries. Witch hunting was sanctioned to root out a global satanic conspiracy that was polluting civilization. Orgies, cannibalism, child murders, satanic conspiracies and pollution of genetic purity still fuel “witch hunts” to this day. The point is that wrong ideas do not have to be true to have staying power, and to defeat facts. Wrong ideas have power to kill good ideas, good science, and evidence based medicine.

The NFL has done a terrific job of embedding itself so deep into American society that it has the overtones of a religion. And the NFL’s protocol has the “weight of evidence” behind it. To repeat: nothing in the NFL’s Concussion Protocol, especially the Return to Participation Protocol, discusses a brain wound, or intervention with HBOT to reduce inflammation, flood the brain with oxygen, and heal the wound. It is all about symptom identification and resolution, despite accumulating evidence that delay in actual brain wound treatment can lead to lifelong degeneration.

The myth continues: Keep adding to observers to ensure we don’t miss the symptoms, but just wait a while for them to go away. That blue tent on the sidelines and the walk to the locker room are for privacy and diagnosis, not healing medicine.

We’ll keep coming back to the Myths and Myth Makers in the coming weeks.

NOTE: One professional society that continues to evolve around Veterans’ issues is the Court system. The first Veteran Treatment Courts (VTC) was created in Buffalo, New York in January 2008. The number of VTCs has since grown to over 600 in the United States as of 2021. VTCs know enough about Veteran trauma to know that a new/enhanced system to treat Veterans in legal peril was required. Would that the medical culture had evolved vis-a-vis TBIs; Veterans would be receiving brain wound healing that we now know is superior to life-saving compared to the standard of care in the VA.

NOTE: To experience the birth of a series of concussion myths and mythmakers, view “League of Denial.”

NOTE: A new study out of England “suggests that repeated head injuries, such as concussions, a known risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), may reactivate a common dormant virus in the brain, increasing the risk of AD and other neurodegenerative conditions. Researchers found that even mild brain trauma can trigger this chain reaction, leading to harmful changes associated with memory loss and cognitive decline. When the brain tissues were exposed to repeated “mild blows,” the previously dormant HSV-1 virus became active. This reactivation triggered inflammation, beta-amyloid plaque build-up, and the formation of harmful tau proteins, which can damage brain cells and impair memory.”

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The TreatNOW Mission is ending service member suicides. Along the way, we have learned that we can end suicidal ideation, help end symptoms of PTSD, get patients off most of their drugs, and heal brain wounds to end the effects of Concussion, BLAST injury, mild TBI Persistent Post Concussive Syndrome, and polytrauma from AHI and Burn Pits. www.treatnow.org

Information provided by TreatNOW.org does not constitute a medical recommendation. It is intended for informational purposes only, and no claims, either real or implied, are being made.