It’s been about three months since I began what I’ve dubbed a hypothalamus fix. Basically, since no medical professional understood the problem, I decided to figure it out myself and “fix” the brain-injury induced problems of high body temperature, edema (water retention), diabetes, fast heart rate, varying blood pressure, skin irritations: basically an extreme version…
Category: Brain Power
Musings on what makes for a powerful brain. This category also includes the sub-category Brain Health, which covers all things related to brain injury.
With Brain Injury, Problems Mean Derailment
It doesn’t take much to derail a person with a brain injury. There you are, trucking along, feeling pleased with how functional you are, how productive, how much better you feel, and your dishwasher breaks down and you’re a puddle on the floor. Well, not quite that bad this time. Coping, problem solving, decision making:…
A Hypothalamus Fix for Closed Head Injury?
As I wrote earlier, I had suffered from various metabolic issues that the medical community was either unable or unwilling to understand and to treat. Over the years, I sought understanding, using what I remembered of my pre-injury knowledge of physiology, neurophysiology, and research skills. As I got better cognitively, especially this past year with…
The Hypothalamus and Brain Injury
The first part of this series is how I came to look at the hypothalamus. This post is more about general principles of how the hypothalamus works for those of us who aren’t physiologists, rather than a scientific treatise. However, I’ve included links for those who want to know the mind-bending details. I’d also like…
The Hidden Secret of Brain Injury: Hypothalamus Dysfunction
“I’m going to get off the atenolol,” I told my GP, who promptly laughed at me. Well, I might, just might, have the last laugh. I was put on atenolol (a beta blocker) 7 years after I suffered from a closed head injury and began 7 years of 120+ heart rate, of yo-yoing blood pressure,…
Reading: The Eyes and Brains of It, II
So now you’ve read about the whys of brain-injury created reading problems (and if you haven’t, have a gander at it first), you’re probably wondering: how do I fix it!?! As I mentioned before, going straight to the behavioural model after sustaining a brain injury is an exercise in frustration for the person with the…
Entraining the Brain the Audiovisual Way
My first encounter with audiovisual entrainment (AVE) was in a psychologist’s office. He handed me a pair of what looked like goggle-sized mirrored sunglasses (Omniscreen), but I couldn’t see through them. Instead, a translucent plastic screen covered the inside of the glasses, behind which lay LED lights, four to each lens. He then handed me…
Reading: The Eyes and Brains of It
Reading. Once you learn how to do it, the only thing you need worry about is what to read and when to find the time. Until a traumatic brain injury f* it up. As I have discovered over the past few years, reading is a complicated process, mediated by several parts of the brain. It…
Best Two iPad Apps For Organization
As I wrote previously, I bought the Apple iPad for two reasons: to compensate for brain injury-related issues and for my work as a writer. Today’s post is about the former. A huge problem people with brain injuries face is, IMHO, the inability to organize, initiate, and to get things done from start to finish.…