Martha was in her mid forties. Her face appeared pale and distraught, with disheveled hair. The red and swollen eyelids suggested she had been crying. Before she sat down, she opened her fist and handed me three crumpled fifty-dollar bills.

“Three of my friends got together and each donated fifty dollars for this hour with you. I lost my job as a therapist at the Counseling Center after a car accident. I have no savings and no place to live. My friends are helping me survive.”

It was 1996. I had been practicing environmental medicine in my little in-home clinic for three years after veering away from a decade of practicing mainstream medicine with its heavy pharmaceutical approach to whatever problem a patient might have.

My private practice tended to attract people who had puzzling medical problems that were not helped by the conventional approach. Among them was one patient, Martha M., who stands out in my memory because of the bizarre interactions we had and the equally bizarre recommendations I gave her to regain her health. 

Five months before her appointment with me, Martha had a car accident. Her car had been rear-ended when she slowed down to make a left-hand turn. Although her car sustained only a few dents in the fender from the impact, she said that her neck jerked backward and then rebounded forward, causing her head to hit the steering wheel. At first, she didn’t think she was hurt, so she turned down the offer to go by ambulance to the emergency room to be evaluated. Instead, she saw a chiropractor a few days later to get an adjustment of her neck. By the following week Martha knew that something bad had happened to her brain. 

“I can’t concentrate, can’t remember even simple things, and I get easily confused and frustrated. I can’t control my emotions. I cry and get irritated and angry easily. And I’m depressed. I’m also having constant anxiety. It’s with me all the time. I was never an anxious type of person before the accident.” 

Martha went to see her primary care provider. He examined her and did a brain scan. He said everything was normal and implied that the problem was “all in her head.” He doubted that such a minor fender-bender could result in her long list of symptoms. He recommended that she see a psychiatrist and get on medications for her anxiety and depression.

As she related this information to me, my response was “Yes, Martha, I think it is ‘all in your head,’ but I mean that literally—not the way your doctor meant it. You have a physical problem in your brain.” 

I had observed over the years that a small percentage of the people who have what appear to be minor accidents involving the head end up with serious, long lasting problems, seemingly out of proportion to the level of impact from the accident. These post-concussion problems don’t show up on brain scans. Without hard data to support the complaints of the patient, the treating physicians, especially in years past, often referred the patient for counseling and medication.

In those days, no officially recognized diagnosis existed for the mild version of traumatic brain injury. Only severe trauma to the brain from an external source that resulted in gross abnormalities, such as bleeding in the brain, was recognized. The abnormalities had to show up on the brain scans or the electroencephalograms of the brain waves (EEGs), or on neurological examinations that revealed deficits such as diminished reflexes or weakness on one side of the body.

Thus, the only insurance-covered treatment for brain injury was reserved for those with traumatic brain injury (TBI) that could be documented. Otherwise, the problem did not exist or was considered an emotional or psychiatric problem and treated accordingly.

I tried to explain to Martha how the brain moves back and forth in the skull during a severe whiplash of the neck or a blow to the head. The forceful acceleration/deceleration movement can cause microscopic sheering or tearing in the brain tissues. The disruption of the neuronal connections has the potential to cause microscopic scarring that can interfere with cell-to-cell communication. And on the heels of the shearing action comes the associated swelling of the brain that can also produce a host of disturbing symptoms.

Depending on multiple factors, including the force of the impact, some people return to their baseline quickly with minimal need for intervention. Since Martha had made no progress in the five months following the accident, she belonged to a small category of people who sometimes take years to fully recover their baseline functioning. In fact, some people report that they never fully recover even with the passage of several years.

As I explained in detail the mechanism of injury, I watched Martha’s eyes become unfocused and her attention wander, so I kept the discussion simple.

The one hour Martha requested left me little time to take a comprehensive medical history and then make a plan that would help her get well. She had great difficulty organizing her thoughts, so I skimmed over her past and went right to working out a program for her to heal her brain.

I gave her some paper and a pen and asked her to write down my suggestions. I began by talking about different programs that specialized in support for brain-injured patients and gave her a list of a few supplements that were known to support brain function, I assumed her friends might be able to help her cover the costs of what I recommended.

Martha took the paper and pen and started to write. After a few minutes of taking notes, she looked up at me, her face flushed with anger, and said in a combative tone of voice, “I don’t think you heard me, doctor. I said I do NOT have any money and NO health insurance. I can’t afford any of these things you’re recommending to me. I’m homeless and without a job. This accident has ruined my life.”

 Although there is a human tendency to take anger personally, I had worked long enough with patients with out-of-control anger and rage issues to know that these extreme emotions were partly a manifestation of the effects of neurotoxic exposures or trauma to the brain.

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly and did what I sometimes do when I’m at a loss and earnestly looking for answers—a habit I developed as a young girl. I looked up to my left and made a silent plea for help. “Show me how I can help this poor woman.”

A few seconds later I looked into Martha’s eyes and said with confidence in my voice, “Okay. Since you don’t have any money to get the help you need, here’s what you do. Please take notes. I want you to go live in a cabin up in the mountains north of town and stay there for a year. Your main activity, other than doing household chores, will be to lie on the ground every day as long as you can. If it’s snowing outside, you can bundle up and lie on a blanket. But everyday you need to do this and you will get well and regain your life back.”

Martha looked up from her paper. She was furious. She said, “Is that your recommendation? You’ve got to be kidding me. First of all, I don’t have a cabin. Secondly, what you’re saying is complete nonsense. I wasted my friends’ money. Are we done? Is the hour up?”

“Yes,” I said with hesitation.

Martha got out of her chair, red-faced, and walked out of the room and down the hall to the front door. At the end of the hall she turned around and glared at me, then walked out and slammed the door behind her.

At that moment, I felt embarrassed and ashamed of myself for allowing the intuition I received to be verbalized to the patient. It must have sounded utterly ridiculous to her. It actually sounded ridiculous to me as well—even though there were no other viable options to offer her, given her circumstances. I chastised myself for the next several days. I assumed Martha would report me to the medical board for practicing non-standard-of-care medicine. I imagined getting a notarized letter in the mail and having to appear in front of a panel of men on the board and justify my bizarre recommendations.

I vowed never to speak again with information that came from anywhere other than my rational mind. If I had done so in the situation with Martha, I would have simply told her, “I’m so sorry, but I’m not able to help you,” and then returned her three fifty-dollar bills.

After a few weeks I forgot about the incident.

A year and a half after my encounter with Martha, I gave a weekend workshop in Santa Fe called “Composting Disaster: From Breakdown to Breakthrough.” While the room was being set up for the workshop, I sat at a little table in the lobby to take last minute registrations. An attractive woman walked up to the table and stood in front of me with a broad smile on her face without saying a word. She looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place her in my mind.

Finally the mystery woman broke the suspense and said, “Doctor Elliott, don’t you remember me? I’m Martha. I came for an appointment with you over a year ago.”

“Martha?? Hmm. Oh, yes! Now I remember. Gosh, you look great, Martha. I didn’t recognize you at all. How did you regain such vibrant health?” I asked, totally taken by surprise.

“I did exactly what you told me to do,” she said with a big grin.

I searched my brain for some recollection. “What did I tell you to do?” 

She answered, “You told me to lie on the earth for a year. At our appointment, I was really furious with you because I thought you had wasted my friends’ money that they had given me for the appointment with you. What you said to me sounded like you were a quack. When I left your office, I intended to go straight to the medical board office and report you. But about two minutes after I walked out of your office, I got a call on my cell phone from a friend. She said that some friends of hers were going to Europe for a year and they were looking for someone to live in their cabin up north, near the tiny town of Truchas in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. They said they would pay that person a salary for caretaking the place. Oh my god. What a very strange coincidence!! So, I accepted the job and every day, no matter what kind of weather outside, I laid on the earth as long as I could. I noticed improvement right away. Over the course of the year, I completely regained my brain function and emotional equilibrium and feel better than I ever have. I have a great job now and have started a whole new life. When I read in the paper that you were giving a workshop this weekend, I just had to come and thank you in person.”

I let Martha’s words flow over me like a cool, mountain breeze as I wiped away tears of joy with the back of my hand, then stood up from the table and walked into her open arms. I was still smiling when I went on stage to begin the workshop. 

It was over a decade later that I first heard about the book called Earthing written by Clinton Ober, which gives a detailed discussion of all the many benefits of lying on the earth and walking barefoot in order to receive the healing effects of the earth’s electromagnetic field which resonates with our own electromagnetic fields that are emitted by our bodies’ cells, including our brains.

Frankly, I have no idea how the information I gave Martha arrived in my consciousness except that I had known since I was a child how good it felt to walk barefoot on the earth and how much I enjoyed lying spread eagle on the ground when I was in the mountains.

We will never know if the healing Martha got in the mountains would have eventually taken place on its own with simply the passage of time. In any event, Martha got a small salary and a free place to live, surrounded by the peace and solace of nature—certainly of healing value all by itself.

The following year, all the primary care providers in New Mexico, including internists and family practitioners, received a letter in the mail advising us of a new diagnosis called Mild Traumatic Brain Injury with an explanation of the cause, how to make the diagnosis, and what to do about it. Finally, this condition emerged from the shadows and got official recognition, in spite of the lack of hard evidence brain damage.

The change in attitude had to do with the number of soldiers returning from the wars in the Middle East, as well as the the growing awareness about the potential harm to the brain from high impact sports like football and boxing. Unfortunately, most of the recommendations at that time still involved various medications, based on the symptoms of the patient.

The Center for Disease Control estimates that there are three to five million Americans living with traumatic brain injury-related disability.

If you or a loved one are suffering from the long-term effects of mild traumatic brain injury related to a history of concussion, toxic exposures, stroke, or encephalitis (infection in the brain), there are some steps you can take to heal the brain. Many of them I have already discussed in former blog posts, specifically the ones about seizures and dementia. Please refer to the four posts on “Reversible Dementia,” and the two posts on “Raising the Seizure Threshold.”  Even if there are no seizures and no evidence of dementia, the same principles apply for repairing any kind of damage in the brain.

To summarize briefly, here are a few of the main suggestions for restoring brain health:

• Neurofeedback, discussed in the posts about raising the seizure threshold, is a very effective and fast way to regain normal brain function for many conditions, including mild traumatic brain injury, strokes, mild dementia, and many other brain-related conditions. In Santa Fe, Pamela Bell is an expert in this field. Contact information can be found on the internet.

• Neuropsychological testing can be useful if it is followed by specific therapy based on the results.

• Consider joining one of the MTBI support groups that are sprouting up these days, now that there is recognition of this condition.

• A healthy diet can have a very positive impact on brain repair. The ideal diet would consist of organic whole foods, GMO-free, and sugar-free, and with minimal or no processing. Processed food means the food has been to a factory and altered. The diet also needs to be high in vegetables, especially from the cruciferous family, and high in beneficial fats.

• The brain needs plenty of good fats: coconut oil, olive oil, olives, butter, avocados, nuts and seeds, nut butters, and homemade nut milks. Boxed nut milks from the store have very little nutritional value.

• The “bad” fats, like fried foods, hydrogenated oils, and heated vegetable oils, can actually harm the brain. The cells take up the oxidized fats and incorporate them into the cell membrane where they don’t function properly and interfere with cell-to-cell communication and accelerate the aging process.

• Certain foods have an especially strong healing effect on the brain, such as organic coconut oil. Two tablespoons a day are recommended for brain repair. Foods high in anti-oxidants are also beneficial for the brain. The one most commonly associated with brain health are blueberries, but there are dozens of other food groups high in anti-oxidants.

• Avoid neurotoxic chemicals such as formaldehyde, mycotoxins from molds, and pesticides. The list of chemicals known to be neurotoxic is too long to mention in this post.

• Avoid chemicals in the food that are known to affect brain function in a harmful way, such as MSG used for flavoring, and sucralose and aspartame—synthetic sugar substitutes. You can use chicory root (“Just Like Sugar”) or monk’s fruit (“Lo Han”) or stevia for sweetening, none of which affect one’s blood sugar levels in any significant way.

• Specific supplements are important for facilitating the healing process, such as B-12—taken under the tongue if you are older than 50, Omega 3 fish oils, and magnesium threonate—the only type of magnesium known to cross the blood-brain barrier. (Life Extension sells this special kind of magnesium. The brand name is Neuro Mag.)

• Anti-inflammatory supplements are important because often there is some degree of inflammation in the brain. The anti-inflammatory supplements include bio-available curcumin, Omege 3 fish oils, and ginger. Proteolytic enzymes, like serrapeptase, help break down inflammatory proteins. These particular enzymes need to be taken away from food. Two brands containing these enzymes are Vitalzyme and Neprinol.

• Frankincense is an essential oil that has powerful anti-inflammatory properties. The oil can be sniffed up the nose every few hours to reduce inflammation in the brain. The oil needs to be pure and extracted without solvents.

• A good, viable probiotic is useful too because of the strong connection between the gut and the brain, the subject of a future blog post.

• Daily aerobic exercise is essential for keeping the brain well oxygenated.

• Yoga, Tai Chi, and Qi Gong are very effective at calming the nervous system and keeping in shape.

• Mindfulness Meditation has a long list of benefits, including alleviating anxiety disorders and PTSD and chronic pain.

• Fill the house with classical music, especially music by Mozart. Brain scan studies of students have revealed increased “coherency” of their brain waves while listening to Mozart, resulting in increased feelings of calmness and focused attention.

• High CBD-enriched hemp oil has been very useful to many of my patients for calming the brain and nervous system. The favorite brand is Charlotte’s Web, made famous by the Stanley Brothers in Denver who cultivated this special strain of medical cannabis for babies with seizure disorders. It has almost no THC, the component that alters the brain and makes the person feel “stoned.” The CBD-enriched hemp oil can be ordered legally at cwbotanicals.com

• Brain games on the internet, like Lumosity, have helped some of my patients with their concentration and short-term memory.

• Norman Doidge’s book, “The Brain’s Way of Healing,” is full of valuable information.

• Spending time in nature can have a profoundly calming effect on the brain.

Our brain needs our attention just as much as the rest of our body. Although most brain problems are invisible and cannot be documented, they still need just as much care and concern as a broken leg. Some symptoms of a distressed brain are “brain fog,” inability to concentrate, episodes of confusion, mood instability, uncharacteristic rage attacks, difficulty processing new information, chronic anxiety, and depression for no apparent reason.

Here’s to the good health of our precious brains!