Episode 237: Concussion

Salty & Spice talk about dealing with concussions.

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spk_1:   0:01
Hello, everybody. Hello. Welcome to the show. The Big show, The most critically acclaimed an important podcast that is recording in our vehicle. And we are in the Silverado studio today, the big old farm truck where we'll drive very, very noisy. So we're sorry about the sound. Quality deteriorates when we're talking to you from the Silverado studio. It's not as good as from the Red Studio,

spk_0:   0:28
particularly since we tend to take the Silverado studio over Worst roads.

spk_1:   0:33
Yes, and we're just driving out of the happening Burg of Leonard, Missouri, who would north to our next stop on today's marvelous tour of North Missouri. So welcome to the show. Today is way haven't yet another mystery episode, but we're gonna do a mystery episode with a twist done. Done, done. Are you ready

spk_0:   1:00
for it? I was born ready.

spk_1:   1:02
Okay. Our mystery episode is it's a mystery episode, and you don't know what the subject is. That's what we may miss Trant. So here, ee Oh, we're going to have you picked the subject of the podcast live as our listeners Listen, because I don't know the subject of this podcast either. Well, maybe

spk_0:   1:29
you've forgotten because you took a hard knock on the head not very long ago.

spk_1:   1:34
Oh, oh, yeah, that that was a real blow. That's low.

spk_0:   1:39
But no, it's high. It's a tie block. You're taking it to the head I may be. And now it cost. You may be concussed. You may have a traumatic brain injury.

spk_1:   1:54
No, we really didn't set this up. By the way, you know, it's

spk_0:   1:57
just something. I wrote a story on

spk_1:   2:00
an article. Yes. Okay, let's talk about concussions. You know, I'm a huge football fan. That's that's for real. I'm a huge, huge, huge football fan. I love football at all levels, but one of the biggest concerns in football right now, in a lot of sports and in non sports as well as concussive injury. And it's a real big deal, and I've been hearing a lot about it over the last few years. So let's let's learn a bit about concussions. Taking away. What are concussions? What did they do? Yada, yada, yada. I'll just shut up and listen.

spk_0:   2:33
Okay? Basically, if you there are two sources of brain injury, you can get from trauma to the head and for the purposes of this discussion. We don't have to be persnickety about it. We can call them all concussive kinds of injury. One is when you bruise your brain when the skull changes its mo mentum. Suddenly the brain keeps going until it mashes itself into the front of the skull, and it actually bruises itself by slamming itself against the box it's in. That's like if you get hit hard in the head or if you get a whiplash type of injury, those will cause bruising of the brain because the brain slamming against the inside of the skull

spk_1:   3:22
okay, in the in the clinical term, for this is a bad thing.

spk_0:   3:27
Ah, the clinical term would also be an MTV I or a T B I M stands for minor, but the key letters R T B I traumatic brain injury because they call it Miner if you don't go unconscious and they quit calling it minor if you do go unconscious. But frankly, that is more about how much it alarms the people who are around and taking care of you, not about the actual seriousness of the brain damage involved. You don't have to do anything to the skull like crack it or break it open or anything tohave a traumatic brain injury because you got a soft brain inside our hearts go the other potential kind of injury. Fortunately, more rare is when you tear a blood vessel or twist the brain enough that it blocks one of the channels that allow fluid to flow from one region of the brain to the other. The cerebral spinal fluid. If you break a blood vessel, you get leading into the brain and the blood pressure will push enough blood in there that first there's chunks of brain that aren't getting any blood flow. And that is what's technically called a bad thing cause a stroke, and it also creates enough pressure that it mashes the softer brain tissue against the hard skull. And if you block the cerebrospinal fluid flow, you could also build up pressure from the cerebrospinal fluid, and that will start to mash the brain and compress the brain and gradually developed more and more brain impairment. And the fluid pressure is building up in the brain are a slower developing kind of brain injury, so you don't always see the signs and symptoms right after an impact to the head. Sometimes they kind of creep up on the person over the hours after the injuries taken place. So there you have your two main kinds of brain injury that you're most likely see. Okay. How you know you got him? Well, the old standbys to work to some extent. You know that bit where you're asking somebody what day of the week it is. Where are they? Where are we? What's the score of the game? Stuff like that. Those can reveal cognitive impairments would be the technical term. But it can depend on what area The brain was damaged. If you damage further back, you might not mess with people's memory and ability to think. But you might mess with their, ah, balance and coordination. You might mess with their sleep centers so they develop a sleep disturbance. Either they want to sleep all the time or they can't get sleep. It all you could develop memory problems. Sometimes you even develop emotional problems from these guys. It all depends on where the injury is. So the best way to know if you got one is actually to test out somebody's mental faculties while they're in good shape and then use the same test autumn after they've taken something that you suspect may have caused a brain injury. I remember an incident once I was playing a sport that it's a collision sport, frankly, and usually those collisions don't involve the head. But occasionally bad things happen. Somebody took a hard blow to the head. They were trying to assess if she had a traumatic brain injury and somebody asked her what the name of the vice president was. Is there somebody whispered from the back? Did she ever know that?

spk_1:   7:37
No. Knowing this girl, she would have no idea who the name of vice president was good

spk_0:   7:42
on her best day. She wouldn't know the answer to that question. So it wasn't terribly helpful, but basically just underscores the fact that you have to have some idea where somebody is to begin with before you can really assess if they're taking an injury. I remember

spk_1:   7:57
it was even money whether she knew the president. Yeah, on a good day,

spk_0:   8:04
I remember when I was a kid, one of my brothers took a hard slam of the head to the ground in a football game and we were forced to keep him awake all night. Keep talking to him. All night long, we couldn't let him fall asleep. And I thought that was really bizarre because what could possibly be bad about letting the poor injured guy sleep? Turns out kind and nothing. But if somebody is sleeping and he slips into a coma, you don't know about it until you try and wake him up hours and hours later. If it is the kind of injury that has caused bleeding in the brain or block to cerebrospinal fluid channel, that pressure is building up. The symptoms are going to develop over time. We weren't keeping him awake because sleep was bad for him. We were keeping him awake so we could continue to assess his condition and know if it was deteriorating. Because, frankly, guys from us prepper standpoint on the brain function deteriorating because they've had a traumatic brain injury, I got nothing. You generally fix those with surgery, and neurosurgery is not somebody you're going to teach somebody to do it. A preferable con, a kitchen table.

spk_1:   9:27
So basically what you're saying is if it's a stuff hits the fan situation where you can get medical help. Good medical help.

spk_0:   9:38
Yeah, if you see significant impairment in cognition or balance, or there's nausea and vomiting or their sleepiness or inability to sleep or sudden swings of mood, any of that stuff, all of that stuff can be signs and symptoms of brain injury have oppression. I'll look at it if it all possible now. I am not a physician. So this is somebody who knows something about human physiology talking, not an actual position talking. So don't take it as a medical recommendation. It's not. But I tell you what if Salty took a hard hit to the head and he said he really had a headache and we're in this nasty situation and I cannot get him to medical care. And he's got a headache. And he asked for painkillers, the only one I would consider giving him acetaminophen.

spk_1:   10:34
Which is why

spk_0:   10:35
a little because most of the other anti inflammatory headache type drugs would keep around, have blood to thinning properties, which means they discourage blood clotting.

spk_1:   10:51
No ibuprofen know. Ask would

spk_0:   10:54
not moving aspirin or ibuprofen?

spk_1:   10:56
None bod. Yeah, No biscuit. Yeah. Bad Rover. No. B s kit

spk_0:   11:01
Yeah, this isn't something you, the people who give medical recommendations, actually talk about much because what they talk about is bring people to a medical professional, and I'm in on that.

spk_1:   11:12
Absolutely. This you

spk_0:   11:13
couldn't do it. This is why we in on that.

spk_1:   11:15
That's why God invented urgent care.

spk_0:   11:17
Yeah, because I don't mess around with a brain injury. But if it's not possible, that's one of the things Preppers have to think about. In that case, I would absolutely not give him any pain medication that had, ah, blood thinning anti coagulant kind of properties because if it is bruising in the brain, keeping the bleeding for going longer is likely to make it worse. If it's already a Tauron blood vessel in the brain, you're increasing the chance that you cause serious damage before it manages to get itself stopped. It's just not where I'd be going. Another thing to keep in mind is, if somebody has taken a hard hit to the head and had a traumatic brain injury, they are not likely to recover nearly as fast as you think they should or wish they would. Sometimes it takes quite a while. It often takes weeks. It sometimes takes months. It occasionally takes years. There are some small percentage of individuals who will never completely recover faculties after a traumatic brain injury now, and it is unpredictable.

spk_1:   12:33
Here's a good example in the ER in the NFL. Back in the day, people would get their bell rung, get their bell rung and have a minor concussion.

spk_0:   12:44
Hate that expression.

spk_1:   12:46
And, you know, as long as their thoughts cleared up, they put

spk_0:   12:51
him right back in the game. Yeah, and you are much more likely to re injure when I we posted this story already on three b y, and an individual who has worked as a coordinator for support group for people with traumatic brain injury was kind enough to jump in and tell us some things about long term recovery from traumatic brain injury. And the story was not a pretty one, as faras long term, lasting damage,

spk_1:   13:24
right, and you've got guys who played in the NFL and have had multiple concussions. There's a huge deal now about how what the's concussions have done long term into causing, well, swat C

spk_0:   13:40
T CBT, eh?

spk_1:   13:43
Whatever the product. Chronic

spk_0:   13:46
traumatic brain injury basically

spk_1:   13:47
and basically seat. You know their wives just become a living hell sometimes is no muscular contain The very famous football players have killed themselves. Thio. Stop the pain When my feet

spk_0:   14:02
were just has it changes mood

spk_1:   14:04
someone one of my favorite players ever. Dave Duerson killed himself because because of Destin had his brain sent off to be investigated. And they did, and they found damage. Exactly what you know you would expect, Junior say out Great great guy, great great football player killed himself.

spk_0:   14:29
Some of the moodiness and mood swings and aggression that some of these people experience can be traced to repeated hits to the head. At least it's certainly correlates with the kind of injury they've got when you look at him

spk_1:   14:41
and a guy like Seo who was he was considered one of the great teammates of gregarious guy guy. Everybody loved, but he had had several concussions. And so it's a really deal.

spk_0:   14:54
You don't even have to have concussions to get the cumulative damage that leads to C. T V I.

spk_1:   15:00
Yeah, but you know, But you're playing a little light that we are playing middle linebacker in the NFL. But In an age where they don't care about concussions, you are asking, You're asking for it now. In the NFL, they've been doing some things like they've been banning old helmets. They've been developing newer helmets That will help, so

spk_0:   15:22
there's only so much a helmet can do. Though you're having very big, very strong, very fast people colliding with each other on head on collisions.

spk_1:   15:30
Well taking rule this year about leading with your helmet. It's a penalty to now lead with your helmet for blocking or running. We'll see how that goes. Bottom line is, though, I don't think most people who haven't been around professional football players are who have don't have, uh, you know, adult friends who are football players, uh, professional, or even a semi pro level. The high semi pro level people don't realize how big they are, how fast they are, how hard they hit. And it's just boom, boom, every play, it's they're big, they're fast and the the force of the impact is just so great. We've been shooting on the sidelines and you know, we've seen hits, so just take the air out of the stadium

spk_0:   16:33
and we're dead.

spk_1:   16:35
Oh, my God, don't bother with the able. Let's just call the funeral home. Uh, but

spk_0:   16:43
it doesn't have to be that big and that dramatic either. We salty and I both have a friend of ours was doing a recreational activity where she slipped and hit her head and she could not drive for over a year. We have intermittent mince words, and she was wearing a helmet. Just I didn't know if she was wearing a helmet.

spk_1:   17:10
Yeah, but it was no sweat saver things.

spk_0:   17:12
That was a bad helmet. Yeah, but at any rate, it was one hit from slipping while doing sports. And she literally could not drive for over a year because of the intermittent bounce bouts of nausea and dizziness.

spk_1:   17:29
Vertigo problems, too.

spk_0:   17:31
Yeah, her life completely changed as a result of that one minor slip.

spk_1:   17:36
Interestingly, with this person that we're thinking of the same person we are, she couldn't really do anything so around. Yeah, so she I needed a way to to, you know, pass the time and everything. So she stick took up doodling and drawing. She's a professional artist who

spk_0:   17:56
choose an amazing artist.

spk_1:   17:58
Has amazing skills, were the best artists in the region. I mean, Hearst work sells for big money just simply because she couldn't do anything else that she was used to do it because all of that stuff was active and she couldn't really

spk_0:   18:15
walk around. Mental activity counts, too. Sometimes people are incapable of engaging in mental activity as well as physical activity. They tell you after you have hit your head to not even do things like watch television because it's too mentally activating what you're supposed to do with yourself when you're not even supposed to read or watch television. Other than watching the birds of the bird feeder, which is more mentally stimulating to me than most television is, I don't really know what you're supposed to do with your time fish. Watching fish is more mentally stimulating the most TV, my opinion. But that's me,

spk_1:   18:57
especially art kind of tanks. Yeah, our tanks, we Kendall region like tough fish. We're taking you in one of our tanks that you're you're in a top neighborhood. You know what? We were the sick. Let's that they they really beat the snot out of each other, so yeah,

spk_0:   19:18
don't expect too much of somebody who's had a head injury for a while, too, and be aware that they are going to be prone to reinjure the person who posted the comment who had dealt a lot with TB. I patients had said even the muzzle blast of a firearm is enough to re injure in some cases.

spk_1:   19:35
So there you go. Yeah, we hope to find this of interest, and, uh, check out the article, check out the article. It's already posted. So we're just kind of doing a, Ah, a podcast. That was a mystery podcast, and she already had something to talk about. So there we are. We'll talk to you next time.