When something stressful happens, our body goes into “fight or flight” mode, pumping out stress hormones, raising blood pressure and pulse, and shunting blood away from the organs and towards the limbs. When the stress is over, a healthy body bounces back and returns to normal.

Unfortunately, many people are stuck in fight-or-flight mode. This is especially true in people dealing with a chronic health or brain disorder, as their health itself is a chronic stressor in a self-perpetuating vicious cycle.

The autonomic nervous system, which runs such bodily functions as digestion, heart beat, breathing, etc., consists of two arms:

The sympathetic system, also known as the fight-or-flight system.

The parasympathetic system, also known as the rest-and-digest system.

When you’re in a life-or-death situation, you don’t need to digest, detoxify, reproduce, or regenerate cells — duties for the parasympathetic rest-and-digest system. The priority is simply to keep you alive. Once you’re safe, the parasympathetic system kicks back in.

The problem is modern life has many of us on hyper drive, in what feels like an ongoing attack. This keeps us in sympathetic mode longer than we should be.

Causes of chronic fight-or-flight mode

It’s not just daily stress that can keep a person stuck in sympathetic mode. It could be stress from the past that has been hardwired into your brain, a concept referred to as negative plasticity. The neuron pathways in your brain have become highly efficient at stress so it takes less and less to trigger a stress response.

The most common example of this is post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. It can also come from long periods of overwork and sleep deprivation that have essentially trained your brain to be agitated all the time, even though your health is being sacrificed.

Signs of chronic sympathetic stress

Signs you are stuck in sympathetic mode include problems with sleep, anxiety, blood sugar issues (even with a blood-sugar-balancing diet), sexual dysfunction, brain fog, memory issues, fatigue, difficulty recovering from exercise or stressful events, getting sick easily, and chronic pain.

Chronic sympathetic stress not only creates negative plasticity, it also damages the gut lining, leading to intestinal permeability, or leaky gut. This allows undigested foods, bacteria, yeast, and other pathogens into the bloodstream, where they trigger inflammation. This chronic inflammation is the foundation to many health maladies.

Getting out of chronic sympathetic stress mode

The most obvious first step to managing sympathetic stress is to address the cause of stress. The cause can be metabolic, such as chronic infection, blood sugar issues, hormone deficiencies, inflammation, or undiagnosed autoimmunity.

 Or it can be lifestyle, such as a toxic job or relationship, not sleeping enough, or taking on too much to do and never taking time off.

Another commonly overlooked cause is a brain-based disorder. The less healthy or more degenerated the brain is, the less able it is to dampen sympathetic stress.

If you suffer from brain fog, memory loss, poor cognitive skills, and lack of brain endurance, you may also find you’re often in fight-or-flight mode.

Problems with your vestibular (inner ear) system  or cerebellum, both of which play a role in balance, can cause chronic sympathetic stress because the brain is constantly feeling unbalanced.

People may also have issues with the basal ganglia — which acts as the gas and brake pedal of the brain — that keeps them chronically stressed out. These are just a few ways in which a brain-based disorder can contribute to sympathetic stress.

In functional neurology we look at all facets of health to help you unwind sympathetic stress. Sometimes the issue can be as simple as removing certain foods from your diet that are inflaming your body and brain, gluten being the most common.

Other times it takes a neurological exam and some sleuthing to determine whether the issue is brain-based. Often it is a combination of metabolic and brain-based causes.

Ask my office how we can help get you out of chronic sympathetic stress and into a more balanced neurological state that includes plenty of restful and restorative parasympathetic activation.

Your #Health can be looked at as a train on a train track. There are two ways to go, forward or backward. The right way, or the wrong way. Full speed ahead or trainwreck.

Are you traveling the right way down the tracks toward health? Or are you going the wrong way around a curve about to crash into an oncoming train ( #HeartDisease #Stroke #Cancer #Autoimmunity )?

If you are living under the typical American paradigm of “I’ll eat drink, drink, and be merry and modern medicine will save me with a magic bullet prescription medication” then you’re on the wrong track.

Health is a never-ending journey, not a destination.

Health is being created or destroyed every moment with every decision you make.

Are you choosing #FullSpeedAhead or #Trainwreck ?

Do you want full speed ahead but don’t know the choices to make? Have you been in a Trainwreck and want to get the most out of what’s left of your engine?

Then partner with a train engineer that knows how to diagnose what is wrong with your engine, navigate the tracks, and get you traveling in the right direction.

#LifeAtOptimal

#FullSpeedAhead

#LowTestosterine aka #LowT is a hot diagnosis these days.

I have consulted with many men who have “Low T” symptoms such as #Fatigue #LowEnergy #LowLibido #BrainFog #WeightGain etc.

They went to a hormone replacement doctor or clinic, had their #Testosterone checked by blood work (an incomplete test 100% of the time), and were told they had Low T and needed Testosterone replacement via injection, topical, pellet, and/or oral.

I caution the men out there not to jump on this bandwagon.

You MUST ASK WHY you have Low T…or better yet, whether you have it at all.

You can’t know the answers to those two questions unless you have a COMPLETE workup.

You may have low T due to #BloodSugar issues, or #Aromatization that has gone awry, or #ChronicStress or #LiverIssues or #GutIssues

Taking testosterone without assessing these interconnected areas is like taking a pain killer without pulling the knife out of your hand.

#AddressTheCause

#LifeAtOptimal

Person presents with 7+ years of #Dizziness #Imbalance #Anxiety and #EmotionalInstability

Multiple #Neurologists and #ENT have examined and imaged and said results were normal and recommended #Ativan #Xanax and #SSRI medications. This person does not want medications.

I reviewed the medical records from above doctors and found multiple #FunctionalNeurology abnormal findings in their diagnostics. These findings are DEFINITELY relevant to the case and NOT normal.

My examination confirmed the findings (still there 7 years later…it WILL NOT “just go away”).

I have confirmed neurologic abnormalities. Now we must determine WHY they exist.

A history of #TBI #TraumaticBrainInjury from a golf club is one factor.

#Cerebellum #Autoimmunity is another likely contribution, so is #GlutenSensitivity based on family history of #CeliacDisease (Mom). Lastly, a long history of #IBS implicates #GutBrainAxis contribution to metabolic dysfunction.

 Lab results will clarify these hypotheses.

 I love what I do!

 #LifeAtOptimal

#AddressTheCause

#Depression is no longer (and hasn’t been for a while) considered to have a primary cause of #NeurotransmitterDeficiency

The most up to date #ScientificResearch shows that the primary driver is #NeuroInflammation

If we are seeking to truly #AddressTheCause then we must ask, “What is causing the neuroinflammation?”

The answer to that question is the key to cracking the case of the individual in question.

The cause(s) could be many: #TraumaticBrainInjury #TBI #Infection#GutDysbiosis #Excitotoxicity #ChronicStress #PoorDiet #NutrientDeficiency#Autoimmunity #PoorLiver #GeneticDefects #HeavyMetals #CorporateToxins#Medications and more.

So if you go to a doctor and complain of depression and they immediately want to put you on #Prozac or some other #SSRI drug, you know one of two things.

1. They are not current with the research.

And/or

2. They are not thinking critically enough and asking “why?”.

If you think you can get more than 8 minutes out of your visit, try asking them what they think could be causing it and what treatment options are available beside medications.

#LifeAtOptimal

Gas and bloating are two of the most common symptoms that present in clinical practice.  According the the Journal of the American Medical Association, gas and bloating can be diagnostic of Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO).  Do you suffer from gas and bloating after meals?  Do you suffer from gas and bloating all day long?  If you do, you may suffer from SIBO.  You are about to find out that SIBO can have many causes beyond the GI tract.

I had a 12 year old female yesterday morning with OCD, Anxiety, Panic Attacks, and a Tic that has seen many neuros, pediatric neuros, had EEGs, etc that cannot diagnose her. This person came in from 3 hours away.

Beyond the obvious Basal Ganglionic issues, she also has Absence Seizures and Vestibular Migraines that the previous doctors denied and supposedly ruled out with EEG.

I was able to induce an Absence Seizure immediately followed by a Vestibular Migraine during my examination, confirming that she has them..

Mom saw it before I even asked her if she saw it. It was great.

As a mentor of mine says, “how can you treat it if you don’t diagnosis it first?”

This poor girl has been through the ringer with no help because no one has examined or diagnosed her thoroughly enough, combined with the tunnel vision of only focusing on their “specialty”.

Chronic neurologic issues will not be helped if not examined and diagnosed properly. They also will not be helped if there is underlying metabolic dysfunction that has never been considered.

We are excited to see lab results now investigating metabolic, autoimmune, etc contributions. With the results, I can then create an individualized and specific action plan to address her unique constellation of contributing factors.

#AddressTheCause

#LifeAtOptimal

Using a semen analysis to determine the cause of male infertility is like using the exhaust to diagnose a problem with your car. It can be helpful, but to figure out the real cause to the problem, you have to get your hands dirty and dig deeper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRcpmsIUrCE

I recently sprained my ankle during a workout and thought I’d use the experience as a teaching platform.  Today I dig in to the idea that the commonly voiced R.I.C.E. strategy for soft tissue injury is hurting you and slowing your return to action.  I cover the science proving that ice is a poor recovery strategy, and I present a strategy that truly is effective and allows you to get back into action as fast as possible.

Teaching Moment:

I sprained my ankle today running in a workout. Most people go right to the R.I.C.E. (Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate) strategy when they sprain an ankle or sustain an injury.

If your goal is to HEAL FASTER and return to the gym and/or quality of life ASAP, then the R.I. of R.I.C.E. is NOT a good strategy.

Rest (assuming no fracture) and Ice slow healing. Yes, Ice does decrease pain (for a short period) by numbing nerves, but it also slows healing by causing blood vessels to constrict. This means that the swelling and inflammation (which are causing the pain along with tissue damage) remain in the injured area (especially when paired with Rest).

To speed healing you want to C.H.E.M. (copyright Dr. Bartemus): Compress, Heat, Elevate, Move.

Compress with an ACE bandage or my favorite tool from MobilityWOD.com, Voodoo Floss.

While Compressed, you want to Move for a couple reasons:

1. Moving will Move swelling and inflammation out of the injured area via lymphatics and venous circulation.

2. Moving will cause the body to heal/lay down new tissue along lines of stress/normal range of motion.  Rest causes the new tissue to be laid down in a disorganized fashion, which results in poor function.

3. Moving also stimulates the nerves that communicate Movement to the brain. These nerves send signals to the brain at speeds that would make any race car driver jealous; thereby out competing the slower pain nerves signals to the brain, as well as inhibiting pain signals at the spinal cord level.

Heat augments the benefits of Movement by causing blood vessels to open up (vasodilation). This increases the Movement of swelling and inflammation away from the damaged area and increases the Movement of white blood cells and healing factors to the area.

Elevation of the injured area (my ankle in this case) above the level of the heart uses gravity to increase Movement of swelling and inflammation away from the injured area, especially when the area is being Compressed. To really create synergy while Compressing, Heating, and Elevating (and therefore likely sitting/laying still), add Movement by putting a TENS or e-stim unit on the area and turning it up enough to create passive Movement (make the muscles jump).

In conclusion, to heal faster get rid of R.I.C.E. and use C.H.E.M.!