Can a Head Injury Cause My Baby to Have Diarrhea

Post-Concussion Stomach Problems: Loss of Appetite, Food Sensitivity, Acid Reflux, and More

Concussions | Traumatic Brain Injury | Education & Resources | Brain Safe & Intendance

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When people think of concussion symptoms, they often recall of the obvious ones: headaches, drowsiness, fogginess. What they don't expect are gastrointestinal issues.

In the two weeks later on a concussion, you might feel changes to your sense of gustatory modality or smell, loss of appetite, nausea, or vomiting. And if your concussion develops into mail service-concussion syndrome, you tin can have a whole host of stomach problems resulting from that caput injury for months or years later, such as:

Nausea	Vomiting/dry heaves	Bloating and gas
Loss of Appetite	Food sensitivities	Vitamin deficiencies
Diarrhea and constipation	Heartburn and acrid reflux	Abnormal weight gain or loss

Unfortunately, many family healthcare providers, sports medicine professionals, and even neurologists don't make the connection between mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI, or concussion) and tum troubles. Worse, some dismiss the possibility outright.

While a head injury is far from the near common cause of stomach woes, information technology could be the cause of your tummy problems if you developed them afterwards that injury.

So why do concussions sometimes crusade stomach problems? And what can exist washed virtually them? In this post, nosotros answer these and other common questions we go at our post-concussion handling clinic:

• How can a concussion cause breadbasket problems?
• Why do concussions crusade stomach problems?
• What types of stomach bug can you have later on a head injury?
• What can y'all do at home to alleviate symptoms?

We too discuss how gastrointestinal changes can affect how y'all metabolize your medications, and what getting treatment for the caput injury and resulting symptoms involves.

We specialize in treating lingering symptoms of a concussion and other head injuries. 95% of our patients feel statistically verified restoration of encephalon function after handling at our dispensary. To learn if we can assistance y'all, book a free consultation with our team .

How Tin can a Concussion Cause Tum Bug?

A concussion or other head injury can cause tum problems. These symptoms may resolve during your initial recovery (ii weeks to iii months later the injury) or may persist for months or years. They might not appear until some time after the concussion. To sympathise why this happens, yous need to know how a healthy gastrointestinal organisation functions. Then, information technology's easier to sympathise what sometimes goes wrong after a mild or severe TBI.

How the Encephalon, Nervous System, and Tummy Work Together

The purpose of the gastrointestinal tract (GI tract) is 2-fold:

1. To break downwardly the nutrients you consume into forms the rest of your body tin can apply.
2. To trap and dispose of potentially harmful substances you consume.

About of what happens in your GI is controlled locally. The stomach is governed by the enteric nervous organisation (ENS, sometimes chosen your "second brain"). But information technology also responds to stimuli from the brain and the autonomic nervous arrangement (ANS), especially through the vagus nerve.

The autonomic nervous system reaches into almost every organ system in your body to command, or at least influence, automated processes — think heart charge per unit, claret pressure, breathing, speed of digestion. It's the invisible paw backside your "fight or flight" (SNS, the sympathetic branch of the ANS) and "residue and digest" response (PNS, the parasympathetic branch of the ANS).

This influence is critical for normal performance. If you were happily enjoying a repast around the campfire and were suddenly attacked by a carry, your ANS would divert the blood from effectually your stomach to your muscles and then you could flee. This would temporarily tiresome downwards digestion, which could resume at a normal pace when the threat was averted.

Only the ANS too responds to signals from the gut. Your GI tract has sensory cells that detect nutrients, gut hormones, and distension (expansion of your tum or intestines). Information from the gut goes to the ANS, and information from the ANS goes to the gut. You lot can't have a healthy, operation system without this 2-way advice.

But at that place's some other system present in your GI tract: the immune system. Your immune system monitors everything that passes through your GI tract to the remainder of the body and targets whatever threats for emptying. That could mean everything from sequestering bacteria in mucus to an immune cell response that kills unsafe cells.

Your sense of gustatory modality, your sense of smell, your brain's power to translate signals ("This tastes good" or "I'm hungry"), and even the composition of your "good" gut bacteria also play a part in GI health.

A change in whatsoever i of those many variables can lead to tummy issues.

How Head Injuries Can Cause Stomach Issues

A head injury, damage to the encephalon stem, or an injury to the vagus nerve can spark dysfunction in the autonomic nervous organization (a status known as dysautonomia).

Dysautonomia may be severe or mild, and the verbal mix of symptoms changes from patient to patient. (You lot can read more than about the connectedness between head injury and dysautonomia here.)

Retrieve how the ANS plays a large role in gut office? When y'all have dysautonomia, ane of the systems that tin can be negatively impacted is digestion. Dysautonomia can change your speed of digestion and may secondarily issue in your immune system overreacting or in small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO).

Besides dysautonomia, changes in the encephalon after injury can also cause breadbasket problems. After a concussion, the relationship between neurons and the claret vessels that supply them with oxygen may be disrupted (neurovascular coupling [NVC] dysfunction, which yous can read more about here).

The upshot tin can be brain regions that are hypoactive (not doing their jobs) or hyperactive (doing likewise much, or using besides many resource for what they're doing).

Hither are a few examples of how brain dysfunction can lead to stomach issues:

• Your encephalon might call for more blood that it should, short-changing your stomach in the process.
• Your pituitary gland and hypothalamus might be dysregulated, resulting in hormonal imbalances that bulldoze your symptoms.
• Your medulla oblongata could ship the bespeak for you to vomit for no crusade.
• Your brain might not procedure smells correctly, resulting in loss of ambition or nausea.

All this to say, there are many ways that a head injury can cause stomach issues. And there are many tummy problems it can cause.

Symptoms of Post-Concussion Gastrointestinal (GI) Dysfunction

Here is a brief discussion of the symptoms yous might have from post-concussion tummy bug, along with possible causes of each specific symptom. GI dysfunction resulting from caput injury can crusade nausea, loss of ambition, diarrhea and constipation, vomiting, development of food sensitivities and allergies, bloating and gas, heartburn and acid reflux, vitamin deficiency, abnormal weight loss or weight gain, and mental health issues.

Nausea

Nausea is one of the more than circuitous postal service-concussion symptoms. It is not necessarily caused by issues with the stomach. It'south frequently triggered by sure situations (rather than being omnipresent) and does not have to be accompanied by vomiting.

Nausea could be caused by dysregulated breathing that results in an imbalance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in your bloodstream, blood pressure changes (specially with exercise), SIBO, digestion speed, vestibular dysfunction, and more.

Loss of Ambition

In that location are many possible causes for loss of ambition after a concussion:

• Information technology may be secondary to nausea (e.thousand., you have nausea and therefore don't feel similar eating).
• Your sense of sense of taste and smell may have changed, either from damage to the olfactory nerves or from how the orbitofrontal cortex interprets those signals. Foods yous used to like may but seem unappetizing.
• If dysautonomia has slowed down your digestion, you lot may experience full even though you lot oasis't eaten recently.
• Small intestine bacterial overgrowth can cause loss of appetite.
• Hormone changes (particularly in production of ghrelin and leptin, the "hunger" hormones, or from adrenal dysfunction) may cause y'all to feel less hungry.
• If your concussion acquired depression or anxiety, those changes in mental health may crusade loss of appetite.
• If you are less physically active after your concussion (a common scenario) or during the coronavirus pandemic, y'all may simply need less food than before your injury.

It can take some experimentation to determine the crusade. If your orbitofrontal cortex is to arraign, eating colorful nutrient might assistance.

Food manufacturers utilise this trick all the time to concenter buyers (call up about how flavory a carmine bag of fries looks, for example).

If the cause is depression, treating the depression should as well help with your ambition.

If you haven't been exercising, adding prophylactic levels of exercise into your daily routine volition help tremendously (and will ofttimes assist with other symptoms, too).

A knowledgeable concussion doctor can help you lot discern the cause and appropriate treatment options.

Note: While loss of ambition is well-nigh common, some patients feel the reverse: gain of appetite. Some of our patients take described feeling the need to either eat more or eat more ofttimes; others accept insatiable cravings for sure foods. This phenomenon could be related to the brain wanting more glucose to assistance with overuse and fatigue. Information technology could also exist related to hormonal issues , like hyperthyroidism.

Diarrhea and Constipation

Dysautonomia is one of the biggest drivers of both diarrhea and constipation. You may have mostly diarrhea, mostly constipation, or wild swings between the ii.

Nearly post head injury dysautonomia is characterized past too much sympathetic nervous organisation influence (call back, this is the "fight or flight" office of your ANS). As a result, patients with dysautonomia oft suffer from constipation, cervix pain and tension, longer recovery times subsequently being startled, and other symptoms.

Just the ANS may sometimes swing toward the parasympathetic nervous system ("balance and digest") in an try to rebalance, leading to bouts of diarrhea. Diarrhea could also be a outcome of practise intolerance.

You lot can aid gainsay both weather with diet and supplement choices. Magnesium will assistance command constipation but worsen diarrhea (note that magnesium comes in many forms — please consult with your doctor on what blazon is best for you). An increase in dietary fiber should aid with both: soluble cobweb for diarrhea (recollect bananas, beans, and oats) and insoluble fiber for constipation (recollect nuts, seeds, seeded fruit, and most whole grains).

Sufficient water intake is cardinal, however, and several concurrent strategies will probable be needed for comeback.

Vomiting

Airsickness after a concussion could be an astute symptom or be situationally triggered in the months post-obit the injury.

In the first few weeks after your head injury, vomiting could be a response to brain inflammation immediately afterward injury. It might also exist related to migraines, if you have them.

Annotation: If you experience loss of consciousness, vomiting, and other signs of serious injury, seek medical attention at the nearest emergency room or medical clinic. Your md may social club a CT scan or MRI to check for structural brain damage.

In the months following, it could exist from dysfunction in the brain regions that influence vomiting, especially the medulla. It could too exist from vestibular dysfunction: If your body can't determine its position in space, the result is vertigo or dizziness, nausea, and sometimes vomiting.

Faulty signals from the vagus nervus could be the culprit, or it might be induced past exercise.

Finally, it may exist from a newly developed food sensitivity or immune system overreaction, which we'll hash out in the side by side department.

Food Sensitivities

The connection between encephalon injury, dysautonomia, and development of nutrient sensitivities is yet under investigation. Information technology'southward a very new and complex field of report, and so our knowledge about how and why brain injury could cause food sensitivities is even so limited.

We do know that your genetic makeup and surroundings tin influence how y'all answer to nutrient after a head injury. It may exist that you lot develop something similar "leaky gut", in which foods that shouldn't be found outside your intestines are getting out, triggering an allowed response and being labeled as threats by your system. Small intestine bacterial overgrowth may also play a office in food sensitivities.

The near common allergens are the "big 8": gluten, milk, eggs, peanuts, shellfish, soy, fish, and tree basics. Yous might also develop oral allergy syndrome to raw foods that comprise proteins similar to pollen allergens (for example, a ragweed allergy could effect in swollen, itchy lips after you consume a melon).

These foods take proteins that look like to proteins in other parts of the body or in common ecology allergens, then the immune system is more probable to flag them as a threat. If they are flagged, so you develop an allergy and feel an allowed reaction to that food.

When your gut reacts to a nutrient, it may be an allergy (mediated by an immune response confronting that nutrient) or a food sensitivity. A nutrient sensitivity is not an allergy but will however come with unpleasant symptoms. We don't know why nutrient sensitivities develop, and they may or may not go away with time.

If you're young (non through puberty), you may grow out of your food allergy or sensitivity. But once the immune system decides a food is "dangerous," it is unlikely to opposite the decision (disallowment the evolution of new pharmaceutical interventions in the future).

Bloating and Gas

Bloating and gas could come from a bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), from the mode your torso reacts to certain foods, from dull GI motility, or some combination of the in a higher place. It could also be related to dysregulated breathing in which you swallow air without realizing information technology.

Sure yoga poses and dietary changes (peculiarly eliminating any food you lot may be sensitive to) may help.

Vitamin Deficiency

If your GI system is inflamed or moving too quickly, you might not blot all the vitamins and minerals you demand. It's very common for our patients to have one or more vitamin deficiencies.

Inquire your doctor to test your vitamin levels if they oasis't been checked recently. Even if y'all have normal results, it may assistance to accept some supplemental vitamin C, vitamin B, vitamin D, and peradventure a low dose of iron.

Please consult with a physician or nutritionist before changing what supplements you take.

Heartburn and Acid Reflux

Many postal service-concussion patients are surprised to acquire that dysautonomia could lead to heartburn and acid reflux, even hours subsequently mealtime.

Some causes can be:

• Your stomach is producing more acid than it should.
• Food is moving too slowly through your esophagus.
• Your claret pH is off due to dysregulated breathing.
• Y'all are at present more sensitive to acidic foods.

Two steps you tin accept to moderate symptoms are to utilise antacids like TUMS and avoid the most acidic foods (lemon, tomatoes, spicy peppers, etc.). Here's a curt commodity on what helps and hurts when you have acid reflux.

Aberrant Weight Loss or Weight Proceeds

So often, patients tell the states their doctors are laser-focused on their weight changes, blaming their symptoms on their weight. But sometimes, those weight changes are the symptom.

The ANS plays a major function in the regulation of food intake, involving fullness or hunger signals and how much energy is used or needed. Thus, ANS dysregulation might change body composition.

You know what is normal for you. Lower physical activity after your injury can contribute to weight gain, but it's not enough for large swings in weight. If your habits don't significantly change but you suddenly find yourself gaining or losing weight uncontrollably, that is a clear sign that something is wrong and needs medical attention.

Bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) could cause malnutrition and weight loss. Hormone changes (mainly ghrelin, leptin, thyroid hormones, and cortisol) could also exist the culprits.

If you haven't done so yet, go your hormone levels checked by a md who has some familiarity with post-traumatic hypopituitarism and other injury-related changes.

Low and Other Mental Wellness Changes

Your stomach and your encephalon have a profound influence on each other. Your encephalon can change your tummy function, but your stomach tin too alter your brain function.

For example, about of your torso'due south serotonin is produced in the gut. Depression serotonin levels tin can influence your mood and might play a role in depression.

Vitamin deficiency is also associated with mental health struggles. Vitamin C deficiency, for example, is associated with mood challenges and cognitive difficulties. Vitamin B and vitamin D deficiency may also play a part in your emotional struggles.

Post-Concussion GI Issues Can Affect Medications, Too

The moment you lot put something in your mouth, information technology's in your GI arrangement. Your GI stretches from your mouth, downwards your esophagus into the tummy, and throughout your intestines.

That means any problem affecting your digestion could touch how you lot tolerate medication, too. For case, if your medicine moves very slowly through your intestines merely your absorption is good, yous could go a higher dose than intended during a sure fourth dimension period. On the other hand, if you have a lot of gut inflammation or diarrhea, you might not absorb as much as intended.

If it moves slowly through your esophagus, the protective coating on medication could wearable abroad before it reaches your stomach, subjecting yous to a painful burning sensation.

On peak of that, annihilation that can cross the blood-encephalon bulwark may collaborate with an injured brain differently than it does in neurotypical humans.

Whether you've had a balmy traumatic brain injury or a severe traumatic encephalon injury, y'all are more than at risk for adverse reactions to medication.

Additional causes may include issues with metabolism, either from the GI or the liver, and immune-mediated hypersensitivity.

Does this mean you should never popular an ibuprofen or ignore your doctor's recommendations? Not at all. But information technology does mean that you lot need to be circumspect.

Make a note of any side furnishings you experience. You may need to troubleshoot dosage or try different brands of a medication until you detect what'south correct for you lot.

That said, if y'all have a nonpharmacological solution to a trouble you're facing, try that first.

8 Strategies for Coping with GI Problems After Head Injury

These strategies are not a substitute for expert, post-concussion treatment, simply they should help with whichever GI symptoms you're experiencing. In no particular order:

1. Keep a food diary. It is time-consuming, but information technology will aid you understand which foods trigger your symptoms and so you tin can avoid them in the future. If you're struggling to do this on your own, consider working with a nutritionist, dietitian, or allergy practitioner who specializes in food reactions.
2. If yous experience similar your gut is constantly upset, limit your exposure to different types of foods and let your system calm downwardly before reintroducing them. One of our favorite dishes for this is ginger, rice, and chicken soup. If you are worried well-nigh the ingredients in chicken goop, utilise water and a whole chicken instead of goop and chicken breasts. Slow cooking or pressure cooking will help season from the bones soak into the soup. Restricting and slowly re-expanding your nutrition is also a process that a nutritionist can aid you with.
3. Take supplements for vitamin deficiencies. Consider extra vitamin C, D, and B if you're experiencing symptoms related to depression levels of those vitamins, fifty-fifty if your levels are inside acceptable test ranges.
4. Try to eat 6 modest meals a day instead of iii big ones. This volition assist if y'all take slow digestion considering it gives your GI tract less to handle all at one time. It might likewise help reduce acrid reflux and heartburn.
5. Sleep on your left side if yous have nighttime symptoms. This position reduces stress on the GI tract.
6. Consider pursuing an anti-inflammatory diet or a ketogenic diet with the help of your doctor or a nutritionist experienced with brain injury patients. Simply make sure you're too getting the right foods to feed your injured encephalon and ANS.
7. Use yoga, a gut massage, and deep, diaphragmatic animate to help motility food through your gut.
8. Seek medical advice from a GI doctor. They may be able to troubleshoot some of the problems yous're facing. Make sure they know about your caput injury. If you've never been tested for SIBO but take some of the symptoms, ask for a test. If y'all exercise accept SIBO, they can prescribe antibiotics to reset your system.

Treatment for Post-Concussion Syndrome

How much the treatment for your brain injury helps your tummy problems volition depend on which problems you lot have and what's causing them.

Handling at our clinic tin help with many other common symptoms of post-concussion syndrome, such as headaches, brain fog, difficulty sleeping, emotional changes, difficulties with attending, memory problems, vision changes, and more.

All patients at Cognitive FX receive a functional neurocognitive imaging scan (fNCI scan) earlier and later on treatment.

This shows us exactly which of 60 brain regions are dysfunctional after your injury and then we can tailor a treatment plan to your specific needs.

Treatment at Cognitive FX involves multidisciplinary, intense therapy, including neuromuscular therapy, occupational therapy, cognitive therapy, sensorimotor therapy, psychotherapy, and more than.

You can read more than about patient recovery journeys and what treatment is like here:

• Olivia, a figure skater who struggled with a mysterious illness for over a decade before finding Cerebral FX.
• Myrthe, who suffered debilitating symptoms later a skiing blow.
• Sam, who establish relief over 30 years subsequently a brain injury.
• Quirien, who couldn't work after she was hit on her bicycle.

95% of our patients experience statistically verified restoration of encephalon part later on treatment at our dispensary. If you'd like to discuss your situation and what nosotros tin exercise to help, book a free consultation.

Almost Dr. Jaycie Loewen

Dr. Jaycie Loewen is a Clinical Neuroscientist who received her Doctorate of Neuroscience at the University of Utah. Her background includes the study of basic and clinical encephalon injury, including the publication of research regarding mechanisms of epilepsy pathophysiology. Her work has elucidated the role of glial and neuronal cell profiles in viral-induced brain injury and acute seizures. Dr. Loewen is further a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Scholar, with a Main'south in Clinical Investigation awarded in 2018, as well as a recipient of the Higher Education Instruction Specialist Certificate. Through these degrees, she obtained experience with patient care and didactics too as an agreement of the necessity of respecting patient experience and symptoms. Dr. Loewen's focus is firstly patient care and education. She also provides literature analysis and aids in the publication of Cognitive FX'due south research. Her goal is to improve Cerebral Fx's ability to help patients through equal interaction and communication, equally well every bit the furthering of concussion and mild traumatic encephalon injury treatment and scientific discipline.

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Source: https://www.cognitivefxusa.com/blog/concussion-loss-of-appetite-and-other-stomach-problems

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