Updated: Aug 31, 2020
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is usually a result of a forceful impact to the head or body, causing physical damage to the brain. A more severe impact can cause bruising, bleeding and other damage that can create devastating emotional and cognitive problems.
Standard therapies focus on treating the initial trauma and injury to the brain but tend to ignore the chronic symptoms that can arise years after the initial injury.
There is evidence that replacing these deficient hormones in people with TBI can reduce the functional deficits felt in attention, memory, executive functioning and sleep. Some research also suggests that replenishing hormones in dementia and Alzheimer’s patients may also help to inhibit the progression of these diseases.
The hypothalamus and pituitary gland in the brain regulate the production of hormones and hormone factors. A healthy body and brain communicate constantly in order to create a healthy, natural balance of hormones.
Trauma to the brain can often damage the hypothalamic-pituitary system and can severely impair normal hormonal function.
It is believed that hypopituitarism -when the pituitary fails to produce normal hormones levels – affects 50% to 76% of TBI sufferers over time.
Growth hormone binds to receptors found in the brain, especially in regions responsible for learning and memory. The sex hormones, specifically, are also closely related to cognitive function and dysfunction. Sex hormones can function directly as neurotransmitters in the central nervous system.
Offensive lineman Joe DeLamielleure retired from the NFL in 1985 at the age of 34. But years before being named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2003, he began showing TBI symptoms. His symptoms included headaches, bursts of anger, and a 68% hearing loss in his left ear, which he attributes to years of right-handed defensive linemen slapping him in the head.
“You turn 50 and suddenly, things change,” he says. “I thought it was depression, but there were other things besides that. High anxiety. I never slept. I lived football, I loved football,” - Joe DeLamielleure
“I look at how I am now and I think, ‘Is this a temporary thing or am I going to end up like Mike Webster?’” Joe DeLamielleure
Frustrated with the lack of options within mainstream medicine, DeLamielleure sought help from Dr. Tutera, founder of SottoPelle®. DeLamielleure and two other Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees — Paul Krause and Bobby Bell — had heard that Tutera and his colleagues were having some success treating the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
I have a few good friends that suffer from TBI, and one who passed away. It is so sad seeing people I love suffer from this and having no options other than more prescription drugs. I am totally sharing this info with them. Hopefully it will help knowing there are more options out there that might work better than drugs that only numb you.