LONGECITY

I was in a car accident three weeks ago and suffered a brain concussion from which I'm recovering very slowly. Everything takes me longer to do, I have trouble concentrating and memorizing things. Are there any supplements/nootropics that I could add to my regimen to speed things up? I tried aniracetam/aplha GPC but didn't notice anything dramatic.

I already take the following:

Idebenone 180 mg twice a day
Multivitamin/mineral
B-6 100 mg
Panthotenic Acid
Vit C 500 mg
R-ALA

Thanks!

Fish oil
Phosphatidyl serine

lions main

Fish oil
Phosphatidyl serine

Plus CDP Choline at least 1000mg/day

Oxiracetam, 500-800 mg 3x a day with Choline (GPC or CDP are really superior for this application). Oxiracetam is perhaps the best racetam for this purpose. Paris Kidd wrote a book and some articles on Phos Serine and claims it is the best; they compared the phos serine to oxiracetam and claimed phos serine was superior to oxiracetam alone. But they didn't do both together or add any kind of choline to the oxiracetam. You will likely notice an immediate effect from the oxiracetam, unlike the ani. I'd consider microdosing your ani anyway, maybe 60mg 3x a day. When you mix racetams it is easy to overdose. At that low dose of ani shouldn't be an issue. I'd do acetyl-L-Carnitine 500 mg 2x a day also. It is a slow process. These things will help, but the process is gradual and often only noticeable in retrospect. I'd consider scalp acupuncture from someone with experience treating strokes successfully with it. I worked in a clinic doing QEEGs (Quantitative Electroencephalography, brain mapping) and neurofeedback with a lot of head injuries. It is definitely useful if you go to the right person but rather expensive, will take 40 or probably more sessions, and you need a QEEG to identify th specific places your brain is injured and where the synaptic connections are no longer fully connected. With neurofeedback or acupuncture I would ask to speak with a patient who had a head injury and significant recovery with that particular practitioner.

I'm not very clear about the etiology of cognitive problems that occur after concussion; can anyone give me some hints? I've read studies about nootropics that are useful in the case of more severe traumatic brain injury, but I'm unclear as to whether they might be expected to help in cases of concussion.

Mice supplementing with creatine showed 50% less brain damage in closed head injuries. Post concussion, however, I am not sure if creatine supplementation would help.

I'm not very clear about the etiology of cognitive problems that occur after concussion; can anyone give me some hints? I've read studies about nootropics that are useful in the case of more severe traumatic brain injury, but I'm unclear as to whether they might be expected to help in cases of concussion. 

Its quite extensive, this is all from old memory and is missing alot.

1.Excitoxicity, this often results from concussions in varying degrees. A combination of decreased oxygen, decreased excitory amino acid transport function, increased cranial pressure, ruptured membranes(including mitoc) etc can cause severe excitoxicity. Acute intervention can help with this say within 72 hours, i think sigma-1 agonists are frequently used as they have a nmda antagonist action, while also helping (2.) by increasing global communication in the netwrok,

2.Dissassociation, temporal neural networks are disrupted for extended periods. Adaptive process quickly weaken the old pathways in favour of whats running currently(during injury). This means alot needs to be relearnt,

3.Inflamatory processes cause extensive damage in there own right.(curcumin, theres lots more)

Phosp serine is a really good idea
Maybe even add some D-serine if you can source
Exercise should help alot
Identifying the cognitive domains that have been impaired and then following through with extensive targeted training to improve performance

I doubt Neuron loss will cause a long term problem for you, but small support cells like glial will have suffered, Lithium could be an option.

Main thing is time and work
Good Luck

I'd also be interested if anyone has any further thoughts on treating concussions and the continuing cognitive issues experienced afterwards.

Unfortunately I recently suffered a bad concussion. I had a slow recovery over a period of about 2 weeks, most of which I could barely do anything in. I struggled to think, had constant brain fog and difficulty concentrating, I was forgetting everything, having constant headaches and a feeling of pressure in my head, having visual anomalies and feeling dizzy and sick, as well as throwing up occasionally. The good news is that each day I was better than than the day before. By the third week I was doing much better.

I'm still having constant headaches though, especially when I do any kind of work, reading or looking at screens. I'm also still getting dizziness, visual distortions and nausea, and I get brain fog and difficulty concentrating. Sometimes it feels like I have become really stupid. I just can't work out simple things and struggle with words.

I've been taking some piracetam with a choline source which seemed to greatly reduce my symptoms when I first tried it but now it just helps me maintain a baseline, but not my original self. It stops me being very bad but I still get the symptoms described, only less so. It improves my thinking speed and memory which masks the symptoms post-concussion.

Is there anything I can do? I read somewhere that the damage you do to your brain when you hit your head is not something that just goes away. You can still function because of the plasticity of the brain and its ability to adapt, but you'll never be quite the same again. I really hope that isn't true. I'm finding it quite debilitating at the moment. I'm struggling at work and am not able to do many of the things I want to in my spare time (drinking alcohol, playing video games, reading, anything on computers for too long). Mainly I find myself having to go to bed early because of my pounding headache and tiredness.

In moderate and severe traumatic brain injury there may be some benefit to early nootropics. However TBI suffers are more susceptible to side effects and its quite possible you will cause more harm than good - due to little research in there area and poor understanding of the mechanism of action.

I would suggest you are best of waiting for a further 2-4 weeks before considering treatment. If your symptoms haven't significantly improved by then certain racetams or acetylcholinesterase inhibitors are the most studied and shown to be safest.

Piracetam at dosages of 1200-2400 have been shown effective in severe head trauma initiated 1.5-5 years after the incident.
Oxiracetam at doses of 2400mg a day usually split into 2-3 doses may be of use

I doubt they will have much effect. Sadly this is one of those disorders you have to wait for to go. If it becomes persistent (3 plus months) then consultation with a psychiatrist, neuropsychiatrist or neurologist should be obtained they may be willing to prescribe acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, stimulants and where necessary will prescribe sleep aids, antidepressants, mood stabilizers and antiepileptics (although these would be prescribed the second recurrent seizures appeared and would almost certainly have started well before now).

Avoiding stimulants for at least a further two months are a MUST. Risk of severe adverse reactions including hemorrhage are increased. Low doses of caffeine are acceptable after the next week I believe (but am not sure). <100mg.

See Lostfalco's Extensive Nootropics Experiments thread above, especially when they start talking about LLLT. Also Google "LLLT amd TBI." LLLT may prove very useful to you.

And to echo Tom, it may be prudent to wait before attempting any treatment not prescribed by your doctor. Before you try anything I suggest you get the approval of your doctor first.

To treat a concussion I'd go with happy's uridine stack, LLLT, meditation, training and sleeping. Maybe throw in some pira and noopept too.

I'd give Cerebrolysin a try! Progesterone might also help: http://summaries.coc...ic-brain-injury

Interesting what you say about caffeine. Maybe I should quit it for a while and see if it helps.

See:

Stuck at the bench: Potential natural neuroprotective compounds for concussion

http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC3205506/

 

Or the Thread

http://www.longecity...ts/#entry684737

Flex, thank you. That article is very interesting.

 

I'm happy to say that I seem to have made a full recovery from my traumatic brain injury. I suffered from post-concussion syndrome for about 6 months afterwards. The main issues were migraines, dizziness and visual anomalies, as well as some brain fog. But these lessened over time and became less frequent, and now it has been many months since I have had any of these problems (although I still have a lot more floaters than I used to, but I believe these are benign). The doctor said that a 6-month recovery is actually quite normal for post-concussion syndrome, but at the time it felt like there was no end in sight and I was worried that the damage I did was irreversible and I would continue to suffer.

 

Omega-3, curcumin, resveratrol in small quantities from my diet, green tea, caffeine, and vitamins E and C, tend to always be a part of my diet both before and after my concussion, so maybe they helped my recovery or made the damage less severe.

Edited by Debaser, 01 September 2014 - 09:27 PM.

You´re welcome

Maybe there could be some additonal improvements expected in the next months e.g. via growth of synapses.

Btw: Doing sports curbs this process up.

 

Wish the best