TBI rehab connection with L.C. rehab

[Ever (Zombiepreparation)]

The first I remember hearing about LongCOVID sufferers being treated by TBI clinics for at least a type of rehab similar TBI rehab while we wait for a treatment was in maybe July, August 2023.  I had begun noting this in the UK as well as a couple places in the US giving TBI rehab for us a try.

Then I picked up a podcast on my Amazon Music feed from a limited episode podcast from the Scotland Chest Heart & Brain Clinic, who had now added LongCOVID to its grouping.

The seven episode limited podcast is titled LongCOVID & Me
LongCOVID & Me


Brief,  interesting, informative. I could see a type of logic as wewholivewithLC are primarily (but not limited to and overlapping here and there) grouped into Respiratory, Heart, and Brain/Gut.

They have a range of guests including both health professionals and people living with Long COVID to start a conversation about experience, support, coping strategies and techniques.  Several of them living with L.C. themselves.

Jay is the Health Information lead in Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland, but has also
been living with chronic fatigue syndrome for 13 years now, hoping that he could share some of the things that he's learned over the last 13 years that might be applicable for people with Long Covid.

Over the series hosts and guests provide their insight covering the topics of fatigue, breathlessness, other.

Then roundout the series having asked their guests for the best and worst advice they've heard for people with L.C. Which is both amusing, and troubling mixed with a dollop of what my L.C. acquaintances and I have heard often enough.

So I was aware of TBI rehab being tried for L.C. 

Also heard breathing properly is one rehab thing. Which was of interest to me because some of us who've gone into a kind of lonnnng term remission are also using some kind of breathing to get there too. And I myself, have noted a connection between my breathing a certain way can sometimes mitigate my symptom duration and/or intensity.

 

[Ever (Zombiepreparation)]

This evening I started wondering what that TBI rehab might be, googling 'what is the breathing treatment for TBI'.

And found the Physiopedia site called Respiratory Management for Traumatic Brain Injury

"In cases of Traumatic Brain Injury, respiratory dysfunction is the most common medical complication which occurs."

I relate to that.

"Up to one-third of patients with severe traumatic brain injury develop Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome"

I have that.

There are several possible mechanisms which are thought to contribute to the respiratory complications seen in cases of brain injury:

Sympathetic Storm

I DEFINITELY experience that.  That's why all the anxiety attacks.

'There is an immediate [within seconds] sympathetic discharge when an injury occurs which raises plasma adrenaline levels to approximately 1,200 times the normal value. The adrenaline levels do then fall, but they remain at 3 times higher than normal for approximately ten days.'

Yup, yup, I've got all this down in my record logs, with lines, colors, arrows, boxes, demonstrating it.

Inflammatory Theory
"As a direct result of the brain damage, a systemic inflammatory reaction occurs.

-breathing rate,
-depth of breaths,
-the symmetry of air intake/lung expansion,
-the regularity of breaths


Exactly!! Well, in my own case at least.


So... breathing with TBI and breathing with LongCOVID. Okay, I see it now.


I did a cursory google look into Physiopedia: What is Physiopedia?

Physiopedia is a rehabilitation knowledge resource, that all health and rehabilitation professionals will find useful. The content of Physiopedia is driven by experts and represents an evidence-based approach to health care. Physiopedia is not uniformly peer reviewed. Peer-review is by no means perfect. It is itself subject to bias, as most things in research are. Evidence from a peer-reviewed article does not make it reliable, based only on that fact.

Though I still consider it just Data at this point I am feeling comfortable with its TBI/L.C. breathing rehab thing. The breathing things article has a lot of references for a deeper examination if I, or anyone wants to go there.

And always... welcome newer, or updated science, falsification. I need to learn, where to look, and most certainly not looking for an echo chamber.

'Facts as we currently know 'em, mam, just the facts.'