Opening Possibilities to Brain-Wounded Veterans

Our son got married earlier this month outside Queenstown, New Zealand. Three helicopters flew our party into the mountains for a spectacular venue. He is a USAFR C-5 pilot, as well as a 777 first officer for United. She is a hands-on, skilled Nurse Practitioner. The sky is the limit for them. Unfortunately, not so much for Veterans worldwide suffering from brain wounds.

The double-destination wedding allowed 28 hours of reflection on the going-and-coming flights. The down-under wide-open spaces and brilliance of the weather, people, vistas, flora and fauna in NZ stood in contrast to the crises afflicting brain-wounded Veterans. Our VA threatens their benefits, dispenses suicidal drugs, denies them proper diagnoses and treatments, scales back job opportunities, and wrings their bureaucratic hands over the suicide epidemic [post 9/11 Veteran suicides exceed 159,000]. New Zealand itself is not immune to their own Veteran and professional sports suicides.

Brain wounds affect the lives of an average 110 people each day in Aotearoa (the Māori name for New Zealand). Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is much more common down under than any of us would like it to be. Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), often referred to as a concussion, affects over 220,000 people in Australia and Aotearoa (ANZ) annually, with 25–30% of people experiencing persisting symptoms for months or longer. ANZ have a combined population of 33 million. There are a reported 220,000 incidents of (m)TBI every year in ANZ or 1.5% of the population. Their numbers of undiagnosed and untreated living perhaps a lifetime with brain wounds is not tracked, but probabilities put the numbers in the tens of thousands. [NOTE: Statistics put worldwide numbers of concussions at 50-60 million yearly.]

For comparison, there are 334 million people in US. Every year in the U.S., approximately 1.7 million to 3.8 million people sustain a traumatic brain injury (TBI) from all causes (falls, combat, accidents, sports, etc.). 70 %–90 % of those TBIs fall into the mild category. 19 %–29 % of U.S. adults report a lifetime history of concussion or TBI. Another analysis found an overall TBI prevalence of about 18.2 % in U.S. adults when defined by lifetime history with loss of consciousness. One survey showed up to ~39% of adults reported symptoms consistent with TBI at some point. So a rough shared figure often used in public health — around 20% of Americans may have experienced at least one mild TBI or concussion in their lifetime, based on surveys and studies. 

During our trip, ANZ released their Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand Clinical Practice Guideline for the assessment and management of mild traumatic brain injury/concussion and persisting post-concussion symptoms in adults and children. Sadly and unsurprisingly, their Guidelines are similar to those published by other major Sports Unions, colleges and high schools worldwide. They go to great lengths to keep managing the symptoms but are silent on treating and healing the underlying brain wound. Their passive advice:

• Recognise and assess
• Initial management
• Return to activity
• Assessment and Management of Specific Symptoms
• Assessment and Management of Persisting Symptoms
• Repeated Concussions and Long Term Effects [they spell out Persisting symptoms: Headaches; Sleep disturbance and fatigue; Mental health; Cognitive difficulties; Balance, dizziness and visual disturbances; Autonomic nervous system; and Repeat concussion and long term effects]

In one of those ironic and funny moments, we were hiking and I was digesting the “new” Concussion protocol I had just read. We spent some trail time with a group of doctors from Perth, Australia. I commented that what little I knew about Perth amounted to knowing about their excellent beaches, their isolation [the most isolated city in the world], how rich they were due to mining, and that Perth natives and Nobel prize winners Drs. Barry Marshall and Robin Warren were awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease.

They laughed because they all knew the story (but not so much about HBOT-for-TBI). Marshall’s and Warren’s groundbreaking 1982 discovery, which challenged the medical consensus that ulcers were caused by stress/diet, led to effective antibiotic treatments. The pair demonstrated that H. pylori is responsible for the vast majority of gastric and duodenal ulcers. This shifted treatment from long-term, expensive, and often ineffective management (antacids, surgery) to a simple, short-course regimen of antibiotics. The 2005 Nobel Committee awarded them the prize for overturning the existing understanding of ulcers, saving millions from chronic suffering and potential gastric cancer.

The “existing understanding” equaled a ferocious, decade-long fight. Arrayed against the science behind the h Pylori discovery were the medical and scientific establishments which “knew” their settled but flawed science. Senior gastroenterologists and microbiologists were deeply resistant to their rice bowls being shattered. Peer reviewers repeatedly rejected their papers, and their work was dismissed at conferences. The pharmaceutical industry had enormous financial stakes in the status quo. Acid-suppressing drugs like cimetidine (Tagamet) and later omeprazole were among the best-selling drugs in the world. A bacterial cause meant ulcers could be cured with a cheap course of antibiotics, which was a direct threat to billions of dollars in ongoing drug sales. Industry influence on medical opinion, and publishing was a real force working against rapid acceptance.

Medical journals were slow and reluctant to publish their findings. Their landmark paper was initially rejected, and when it was eventually published in 1984 in The Lancet, it was met with widespread skepticism rather than excitement.

Gastroenterologists as a specialty had built careers, practices, and reputations around managing ulcer disease as a chronic condition. A cure was professionally and financially disruptive to that model. The culture of medicine itself played a role too: remember past “truths”: germs? bacteria? washing your hands before performing surgery? What could go wrong with holding on to old notions of “science” and playing politics with patients who could be saved at dramatically lower costs?

It took roughly a decade from their initial discovery before the medical mainstream fully accepted their work, which by any measure cost many thousands of patients unnecessary suffering and death from a curable disease.

Out in the forests above Queenstown, I came face to face again with a central truth about medicine: when doctors aren’t taught about a disease, they give in to tradition and the tyranny of the masses. Long-suffering, intractable patients and new ideas are the enemy of “we’ve always done it this way.” The walls of ignorance are slow to crumble.

So too with brain wounds. Concussions, TBI, PTSD, CTE, persisting post-concussion symptoms. Just wait awhile. The “tincture of time” and the amazing neuroplastic brain will make things right. A few hundred thousand ruined lives, rising suicide numbers, billions of dollars in avoidable costs, untold human suffering — those are acceptable losses while we keep investigating new drugs to deal with the symptoms, and new technologies to do quicker diagnoses of how badly damaged your brain might be. Not that they can or will treat it as a wound; better to call it a mental health crisis and turn the wounded over to that culture of drugs and talk therapy. Sadly, the revolving-door mental health system in the US, like “brain injury Centers of Excellence,” is largely structured around crisis stabilization and discharge rather than genuine recovery. 

It’s hard not to be cynical in the face of a medical culture that is slowly changing over time. That’s inevitable as more worldwide science shows how effective Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy is in reversing suicidal ideation and in helping heal those brain wounds which keep announcing their presence with months and years of symptoms that degrade lives and families.

Helping in that eventuality are such groups as the Heritage Foundation and their growing interest in alternative, innovative technologies like Hyperbaric medicine and photobiomodulation. Equally interesting are Olympic athletes like Mikaela Shiffrin and Michael Phelps and hundreds of professional athletes and teams using Hyperbaric therapy for healing, recuperation, peak performance, and concussion recovery.

We’re winning, just not fast enough. Veterans and active duty need help, and it’s available. Heal Brains, Stop Suicides, Restore Lives. TreatNOW.

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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, Burn Pits, and COVID. No Veteran or civilian has ever been killed while undergoing HBOT treatment for TBI/PTSD.

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.