January 14, 2025 • 45 mins
Sophia Bouwens and Dr. Ayla Wolf DAOM discuss their new podcast, "Life After Impact: The Concussion Recovery Podcast" focusing on concussions and brain injuries. Dr. Wolf shares information on her soon-to-be-published book, which includes a 48-question questionnaire to categorize symptoms into eight meaningful categories, such as post-traumatic headaches, cognitive symptoms, vestibular disorders, and visual or oculomotor dysfunction. They emphasize the importance of comprehensive testing and individualized treatment plans. Sophia discusses how her background in neuroscience and acupuncture helped improve outcomes with her own brain injury recovery. Dr. Wolf describes her experiencing with multiple sports-related concussions and current work with patients suffering from post-concussion syndrome.
This episode celebrates the power of curiosity and collaboration, illustrating how innovative therapies can enhance our understanding and treatment of nervous system conditions, all while encouraging listeners to personalize their healing journey.
Future episodes will delve into specific topics like post-traumatic headaches, traumatic neck injuries, cognitive symptoms, vision and eye movement disorders, sleep disorders, mood and personality changes, autonomic dysfunction, neuro-inflammation, dizziness, vertigo and balance issues.
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Visit our website www.lifeafterimpact.com and sign up to be the first to know when Dr. Wolf's book Concussion Breakthrough: Discover the Missing Pieces of Concussion Recovery is available.
What topics do you want to hear more about? What questions do you have? Email us at lifeafterimpact@gmail.com
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Disclaimer:
This podcast is separate and unaffiliated from Sophia Bouwen's work and employment at the Health Partners Neuroscience Center.
Medical disclaimer: this video or podcast is for general informational purposes only, and does not constitute the practice of medicine or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice. No doctor patient relationship is formed. The use of this information and materials included is at the user's own risk. The content of this video or podcast is not intended to be a substitute for medical advice diagnosis or treatment. Consumers of this information should seek the advice of a medical professional for any and all health related issues.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sophia Bouwens (00:00):
Welcome to the life after impact podcast, where
we do a deep dive into allthings concussion and brain
injury related. We'll talk aboutall the different symptoms that
can follow a brain injury,different testing methods,
different practitioners outthere, and different therapies
available. I'm Sophia Bouwens.
I'm here with Dr Ayla Wolf, andwe will be your guides on the
(00:22):
journey to living your best lifeafter impact.
Ayla Wolf (00:27):
Sophia, what's new?
Sophia Bouwens (00:30):
I'm super excited to be here. We have
worked so hard to get to thispoint, and we have so much to
share that I'm just burstingwith excitement about all the
content and topics that we'llcover and how we're going to
help reach people out there. Howare you feeling?
Unknown (00:50):
I'm excited as well.
This has been a project thatwe've been talking about for a
long time. There's been so muchleading up to this, and at the
end of the day, everything thatwe've been working on, the book
that I've been writing, it's allmeant to try to get information
to more people. Because rightnow, up until this point, we've
been treating one patient at atime, often telling each person,
(01:12):
similar things, similarinformation. And I just want to
bring all the information to themasses.
Sophia Bouwens (01:22):
Yes, your book! You've been working on this book
for a long time, and I'm reallyexcited about it. Why don't you
talk about it for a moment?
Unknown (01:29):
Okay, I think it took me a while to figure out how to
organize the information in away that was going to be most
helpful to people. And I thoughtback to what the common
experience is of being on bothsides of the equation, being
both somebody that has had lotsof concussions, has had all the
(01:49):
symptoms, and now being on theother side of it, where these
people are coming to me, andwhat I realize is that when
people come to see me a they'veusually been to like, 10 other
doctors, right? They've alreadydone a lot of other therapies.
I'm kind of their last hope. Butwhen they come in, they start
describing their symptoms, andusually people start bouncing
(02:13):
all over in their timeline,right? And they're like, Well, I
tried this, and I did that, andI have this symptom, and,
usually there's tears andthere's frustration, and you
just feel all of that, right?
You feel all the suffering, and90 minutes could easily go by,
and the questions that I havehaven't been answered, right?
So, so over the years, I'vedeveloped a way of really
(02:34):
getting a lot done in that firstappointment. And so the first
step is understanding how thisconcussion is manifesting for
this individual person. And somy book starts out with a
questionnaire that is 48questions. It's not short, but
what it does is it allows peopleto make meaning out of their
(02:56):
symptoms, and to put theirsymptoms into these eight
specific categories that thenallow people to read the chapter
that corresponds to thatcategory. Because it hasn't
escaped me that people that havebrain injuries and concussions
often have visual symptoms. Theyhave cognitive fatigue. It can
be hard to read a book. I mean,there was a time when I would
(03:19):
start to read a book and I'd,you know, fall asleep within
three minutes, right? I knowwhat that feels like for me.
Writing a book needed to be themedium that I started with, just
to get all the informationthat's rolling around my head
onto paper in an organized way.
And eventually, I was like, oncethe book is done, then maybe I
(03:41):
can turn it into an audio book,and then we can do the podcast,
and we can start getting theinformation out in other ways,
but for the purposes of thebook, people will fill out the
questionnaire, and thenwhichever categories they have
the most symptoms in, they cango read the chapter that
corresponds to that category. Sowe have chapters that focus on
(04:01):
post traumatic headaches,chapters that focus on traumatic
neck injuries, on autonomicnervous system dysfunction,
which can cause things likenausea and dizziness and chronic
pain and exercise intolerance.
POTS, Postural OrthostaticTachycardia Syndrome. We have a
chapter specifically oncognitive symptoms, a chapter on
vestibular disorders, sodizziness, vertigo, what we call
(04:26):
non spinning, vertigo, symptomsof rocking, bobbing, swaying,
and things like disequilibrium,poor balance. A chapter on
vision, eye movements. Eyemovement disorders that can
cause a lot of problems withpeople being able to be in front
of a computer screen, right. Andthen a chapter that gets into
(04:49):
mood dysfunction, and a lot ofpeople will experience things
that they might not even traceback to the brain injury or the
concussion. Sometimes depressioncan come on a year after, you
know, or anxiety can kind ofslowly develop as people have
one concussion or multiple subconcussive hits to the head. On
(05:11):
top of that, maybe
Sophia Bouwens (05:13):
they recovered fine from two, but now this
third one, which wasn't eventhat much, is like totally going
off the wall, and they arereally anxious all the time
Ayla Wolf (05:21):
Exactly, yeah. So sometimes these symptoms, in
terms of even irritability andshort temper, people don't even
trace back to their head injury.
So we get into that topic andthen sleep, because brain
injuries can definitely affectpeople's circadian rhythms,
their ability to fall asleep,their ability to stay asleep. So
that's huge. So we get into allthese different factors. And so
(05:42):
with each of these chapters, Ibreak down what are all of the
different tests that are outthere, not just kind of basic
conventional tests, but allthese other kind of functional
tests that people can do. Andthen we talk about different
treatment strategies that peoplemay not have even heard about or
even considered, and so thewhole book is meant to really
(06:04):
introduce a meaningful way ofcategorizing their symptoms,
understanding what tests areavailable, and learning about
all the different therapies andoptions that are out there that
can help them to heal. And thenlastly, I have a big chapter on
brain inflammation.
Sophia Bouwens (06:23):
You love to talk about brain inflammation? Yes,
Ayla Wolf (06:28):
know, preliminary evidence to look at the presence
of chronic inflammation thatmight be playing a role in some
cases, of people that havechronic, persistent post
(06:49):
concussion symptoms as well. AndI've certainly clinically
experienced a huge improvementin people's symptoms like brain
fog and cognitive fatigue whenwe work with people on that
inflammation front.
Sophia Bouwens (07:03):
this book isn't just about like, here is a bunch
of conditions after injury. It'smore about, here's what they
are, here's how they can betested, and here's some options
for treating them and workingthem that you might not know
about, or your therapist or yourcare team might not know about.
Maybe this will empower you toaccess them. You don't know what
you don't know. So this bookhelps bridge those gaps.
Ayla Wolf (07:26):
Exactly. This is a book that I'm hoping people will
buy and write all over it andhighlight things and bring it to
their doctor. There's tons ofquestionnaires in the book.
There's lots of tests that arein there. So my goal was to just
give people all the tools thatthey can hold in their hands,
and I said, bring with them totheir doctor's appointments, ask
Sophia Bouwens (07:45):
It's a huge number of people. And every
about different tests, trydifferent therapies. I just
wanted to get the information tothe masses. You know, the
research says 50 million peoplearound the world have a brain
injury, and every year, that's alot of people.
(08:06):
single injury can look differentor manifest differently. And so
it can be really confusing todive into these things. Your
book starts to explain that orunravel that.
Unknown (08:18):
Yeah, there. You know, at the end of the day, I think
what we do, obviously, we treateverybody as an individual, and
we create these highlycustomized treatment programs
for people. And so my book iskind of my attempt to show
people how they can create theirown individualized treatment
plan and go find what they needin this very confusing world of
(08:40):
medicine, and for
Sophia Bouwens (08:41):
the people out there who are having difficulty
with reading, or maybe don'tlearn so well by that, you can
listen to the podcast, orthere'll be an audiobook version
coming down the pipeline. Yeah,we want to be neurodiverse in
who we reach
Unknown (08:57):
Exactly. And, you know, hopefully maybe some videos out
there, too little snippets, butyeah, I think this podcast was
really the way that we couldbring the information from the
book to people in a differentformat, if reading is just too
much of a struggle. But I thinkbefore we kind of dive into all
that heavy stuff, people don'tknow who we are, so I think that
(09:19):
we should introduce ourselves alittle bit give people our
background on why we're doingwhat we're doing and how we got
there. So why don't you start?
Sophia Bouwens (09:27):
Well, I found my way to studying the nervous
system in my undergraduatedegree on in neuroscience, and I
was looking at pain, and decidedto study acupuncture effect on
the nervous system in regards topain, and so I designed this
study. We were givingacupuncture to rats and testing
(09:48):
there.
Ayla Wolf (09:49):
How old were you at this time?
I think I was like 19 or 20years old. I was a young pup. It
was like my third year ofundergrad.
Unknown (09:56):
Okay, so when you're 19, what makes you decide? I'm
studying pain, and I want to tryto use acupuncture as my
therapeutic tool.
Sophia Bouwens (10:05):
I never thought I'd find myself in a lab testing
rats with this, but I startedout wanting to go to medical
school, and was a pre medstudent, and had kind of in that
journey, decided I don't want todo surgeries, and I don't want
to manage medications. I don'twant to have lives in my hands.
(10:25):
I want to help people just livea better life, like functionally
and operate better. I want toimprove quality of life and
activities of daily living. ButI kept finding in the medical
field, as I was finding myexperience there that wasn't
necessarily what I was gettinginto with going to medical
school, was more life savingtechnologies, and that, for me,
(10:48):
was hard. So kind of my thirdyear, when I had done all my pre
med work, decided, like, maybe Idon't want to go to med school.
So I turned tracks to studyneuroscience, and in this same
period of time had the onset ofBell's Palsy. Come on. Okay,
Unknown (11:04):
okay, so that was your first foray into acupuncture -
Bell's Palsy.
Sophia Bouwens (11:09):
Rewind back to when I was 16 and I fell
snowboarding and took a reallymean, nasty fall, cranked my
neck. Had felt like really weirdon my face for a while after
that, got on a plane to go toMexico with my mom the next day,
and by the time I landed inMexico, I had a total paralysis
on one side of my face. My momwas like, Oh my gosh, are you
(11:30):
having a stroke? Here we are inCancun for a week. Like, what
are we gonna do? So because youwere in Cancun, we found an
American trained chiropractorand went to see him not knowing,
like, what to do for medicalcare. He ruled out that they had
a stroke, and just said, I hadthis condition called Bell's
Palsy, which is a paralysis ofthe facial nerve, which is a
(11:51):
cranial nerve. And he said, Ican adjust you, and probably
when you get back to the UnitedStates, you can go to your
doctor and they might give yousteroids, and they'll just tell
you, like, six months to threeyears and you'll be better. But
I haven't seen chiropractic workfor this so much as I have seen
acupuncture. So also, when youget back, you should go see an
acupuncturist.
Unknown (12:13):
Okay, so the chiropractor on the beach in
Mexico told you to go see anacupuncturist once you got home.
Ayla Wolf (12:18):
I thought this was off the wall. I was like, Oh my
gosh, how is acupuncture gonnahelp me? That's so weird, but
I'm glad I didn't have a stroke,and the facial paralysis,
cranial nerve injury made senseto me, because my neck hurt and
I had all this other stuff withmy shoulder anyway, so I got
back to United States and didexactly what he said, went to my
(12:40):
doctor, who gave me a steroid.
After about three weeks ofstaring at me, my mom got really
sick of seeing me suffer withthis facial paralysis, like I
couldn't taste on one side of mytongue, my eye wouldn't blink. I
had like my smile was like oneside was bright smile, the other
side was just stone face, right?
Yeah, pictures from this timewere not cute, so she made me go
(13:04):
get acupuncture because I was aminor she's like, Sophia, it
helped my frozen shoulder. Maybeit'll help with your frozen
face. So I went and I got atreatment, and the acupuncturist
was phenomenal. Later thatnight, I could kind of start to
feel my lip, and was asking mymom, like, can I I'm thinking,
I'm moving my face. Is itmoving? She's like, No, it's
(13:25):
not. Within three days, I wasfully recovered, knowing what I
know now. I know that's yourlaugh. Like, can be really
stubborn. She told me to comeback in a week for follow up,
and I didn't go back. We didn'teven need to - just one and
done, one and done. I was curedin three days, one treatment,
which is totally not normallyhow that happens.
Sophia Bouwens (13:47):
it's great. It's a miracle. So fast forward. Here
I am in undergrad, third year,stressed as heck, thinking like
I'm not gonna go to med schoolafter all this work I've done
and I got Bell's policy again.
Oh, so as a neuroscience majorgetting a neurological
condition, knowing I'm not goingto go see a medical doctor, I'm
going to go to an acupuncturist,it reframed my thinking about
(14:10):
how acupuncture was working in aneuroscience lens. And so I got
interested in that and starteddoing research on it. I had my
advisor had was a big painresearcher, so I used his
research to frame a questionabout acupuncture and how it was
working the nervous system. Alot of the research wasn't very
(14:31):
good quality. It had terriblebias. A lot of was coming out of
China and not structured the waythat studies are now. So I
couldn't answer any questionslike, how this was working, but
just that it did work because wedid this testing in rats and saw
the reflexes change, which is abig deal if you're a
neuroscience person, but thatjust led to more questions which
(14:55):
made me really understand, like,if I want to understand. And
acupuncture have to gounderstand the language and the
framework which they're studyingit from. So instead of going to
grad school for neuroscience, Idecided I would go to grad
school for acupuncture and thengo on to get a PhD in
neuroscience, using acupunctureas my framework my thesis to
show the world how amazingacupuncture was at neuro
(15:19):
recovery.
Ayla Wolf (15:21):
Okay, so that's your plan for world domination.
Sophia Bouwens (15:24):
Still on that track, just a different way. So
went to school for acupuncture,got my masters started
practicing. Six months later,was hit by a drunk driver on my
way home from work and sustaineda severe brain injury. Woke up
six days later from a medicallyinduced coma at Regions
Hospital, they asked me what dayit was, who the President was,
(15:47):
what year it was. I wasn'treally sure. Then they tried to
explain to me, Well, the reasonyou don't know is because you've
had a severe diffuse axonaltraumatic brain injury. What
that is is, I stopped him rightthere. I was like, I know what
that is!
Ayla Wolf (16:02):
so you knew the answer to that question!
Sophia Bouwens (16:03):
I knew that one.
And they were just, they kind oflooked at me. I still remember
the look on their face of like,what I was like, I have a degree
in neuroscience, and I'vestudied brain health and
injuries. This is going to be ajourney, but I know something
you don't know. I knowacupuncture is a great
neuromodulator, and it can helpthe nervous system recovery. And
(16:24):
this is going to be a longjourney, but I'm going to do
better than you think I will.
Let's go.
Unknown (16:33):
All right. So day one, wake up from a coma. You're told
you have a diffuse axonalinjury. You say I know exactly
what that is, but I can getthrough this because I have
insights into all kinds of othertherapies that maybe aren't the
first go to therapy that's beingoffered to people in a hospital.
Sophia Bouwens (16:53):
Yes, well, that being said, I was also young. I
was super healthy. I was workingout multiple times a week. I had
just finished acupunctureschool, so it's like this elite,
pristine health component,because I had all my systems
Unknown (17:08):
right? I like to say you're in your mitochondrial
underway, prime.
Sophia Bouwens (17:11):
Yes, I was in my mitochondrial prime. And I was
also with, like, one of the bestrehab teams in the region. So
that was a big component aswell. I'm not saying acupuncture
was the only thing, buttailoring it into my experience
helped me avoid things likeTracheotomies or recover bowel
movement function, start my gaittraining better, faster,
(17:32):
stronger, and then my cerebralblood flow improved. My
inflammation came down like Ijust I did have better outcomes.
Eventually, the team was soimpressed by outcomes, they
hired me. So now I work for thatteam.
Unknown (17:45):
I love that full circle story of the fact that you did
your rehab at the Neurosciencecenter and Regions.
Sophia Bouwens (17:51):
The neuroscience center wasn't built yet. Oh,
okay, it opened the next year.
Unknown (17:55):
Got it. So that was, like the beginnings of it.
Sophia Bouwens (17:58):
It was during that time all my therapists were
like, hold on, hold on. You're aneuroscience background, like
undergraduate background, you'rean acupuncturist and you're a
brain injury survivor, usingacupuncture to really get
through this. You should talk tothem when you're better and
stronger and you feel ready, youshould talk to them about adding
acupuncture in at the newneuroscience center opening next
(18:19):
year, because we're seeing thisis really helping you, and we
want you to do more with it. SoI did. I reached out to the
director after my lastappointment. I saw this phone
number on the wall. Questionsabout the neuroscience center.
Contact this number or send anemail. So I sent an email and
got connected with the rehabdirector at the time, Marnie
Farrell. Shout out to Marnie,who met with me. She was
(18:43):
interested and open, and satdown with me and was interested
and proposed me to have thisposition, eventually set me up
with the research team there,which we conducted this research
study we just published lastmonth.
And it's kind of went off fromthere. Yeah, that's
Unknown (19:00):
From day one of kind of meeting you and hearing about
your connections with theneuroscience center, I have just
loved how open they have been toincorporating a lot of different
therapies into recovery. I thinkit's rare to have a team of
people that are all equally openminded and willing to explore
and it's been a great it's beena great relationship.
Sophia Bouwens (19:24):
I agree with you in the openness. It really is
the hallmark of a goodpractitioner, whether it be a
medical doctor or a physicaltherapist or an acupuncturist,
someone who understands theydon't know everything and are
open to learning more to improvegains. I think that's one of the
missions I want with thispodcast, is to just explain and
share how everybody isdifferent. Every nervous system
(19:46):
is different. It might respondto different things in different
ways. So you need a team who'sopen to exploring those options
with you. The team I work withis that which is super cool. I
Unknown (19:58):
I think curiosity is one of the most important
character traits of a successfulclinician.
Sophia Bouwens (20:05):
I agree, but I want to circle back to when I
found out about you after thisjourney, right? I'm walking
around the lake, and I hear youtalking about the nervous system
and acupuncture in this profoundway that finally connected these
dots that no one had connectedbefore, and that sparked my
curiosity, and I have to give alike a shout out to you, because
(20:28):
when I reached out to you,telling you who I was, knowing
that you were coming toMinnesota, and asking if you'd
meet me for lunch, you said yes,and you were open to exploring
options and talking, and thatled us to where we are, which,
given your background, I waslike, she's never gonna like,
who am I? This littleacupuncturist in Minnesota, I
(20:49):
was taken to, like, listen tome, or meet with me, and you
did. So I want you to share alittle bit about who you are,
because I know all about youramazingness, but who are you?
Ayla Wolf (21:00):
So my journey, we have a lot of parallels in our
journeys. Although you've hadkind of one single intense
traumatic brain injury, I've hadmany, many, many sports related
concussions, and probablynumerous sub concussive hits,
hits to my head, but we bothstarted out in pre med, and so
(21:23):
when I was doing my kind ofundergrad, I basically was doing
pre med. However, I knew that Iwanted to do something in the
kind of natural medicine world.
So my goal was, was not to gointo med school. It was to go
into something like naturopathicmedicine. And there was a school
in Australia that had anaturopathic program. I ended up
(21:47):
going to that school for a year,and that's when I got highly
fascinated and drawn into theworld of Chinese herbal
medicine. And so when I cameback from my time in Australia,
I ended up enrolling in themaster's program that we both
ended up doing, and I was alwaysfascinated with being able to
(22:09):
explain acupuncture and herbalmedicine from a scientific
perspective. So even going backto, like, the age of 13, I
remember studying herbs, andwhenever I would get my hands on
a paper that would explain thescientific reason for why this
particular plant had the abilityto have some kind of healing
(22:32):
effect in the body, I wasfascinated by that. So I don't
know what it was with that, butmy entire life and career, I've
always been extremely fascinatedwith the scientific explanation
for how things work. I can get alittle woo, woo as well. But,
you know, I've got one foot inthe Woo and one foot in the
(22:55):
science. It's a good balance.
Keeps you curious, keeps youinvolved.
Unknown (23:00):
Yeah, yeah. So both of us, after we graduated from our
master's degrees in Chinesemedicine, went into fertility.
And so I think that's anotherinteresting parallel. But while
I was treating people andhelping people get pregnant, I
was racking up my ownconcussions, and so, no, I
(23:25):
trained jiu jitsu a little bit.
I trained MMA a little bit, butI didn't, I ended up not
fighting because my concussion.
I had a couple of concussionsclose together, and at the time,
I was 36 I was training everysingle day, I thought I wanted
to fight in the ring, and Iended up having to stop all my
(23:47):
high impact sports because myconcussions were causing a lot
of problems backing up. Youknow, we talked about this a
little bit before the this ideathat when I was specializing in
fertility, I would see peoplecome in and they would go to
people who were not specialists,and they would maybe have, like,
(24:08):
one test here, and then try thisone thing when that didn't work,
they'd have another test, andthen they'd try that one thing
when that didn't work, thenthey'd do another test, and then
try this other thing. And it wasa very hodgepodge approach. So I
saw this play out in the worldof fertility, and I actually see
this same phenomena playing outin the world of concussions
right now, where people will geta concussion, they will have
(24:32):
many, many different symptoms,and they might go to a doctor
for one thing, and then a doctormight say, well, let's try this,
this medication. And then theytry that, and it doesn't work.
So then maybe they go and theysee a chiropractor, and maybe
one or two symptoms get better,but they still have these other
10 symptoms. And then theymaybe, you know, go back to
their other doctor, and thenthey try a new medication, and
(24:54):
it's this very hodgepodgeapproach to healing. What my
approach. Has become. And whatI've really recognized is you
need to do all the tests upfront. And so, in an ideal
world, when somebody has aconcussion, you would run them
through all the systems, almostlike when you bring your car in,
(25:17):
right? And you get your carchecked, they plug it into, you
know, everything's electronicthese days, so they can plug it
in.
Sophia Bouwens (25:23):
If only we could do a plugin for us, like run
this through the computer,right, exactly.
Unknown (25:27):
Well, that's kind of what we are doing, it's a lot of
different tech involved. So, youknow, you plug your car in, you
run a diagnostics, and then itspits out, here's what's wrong.
Well, basically that's what weneed to do with the brain. So,
bringing it back to the podcast,that's really what this podcast
is about, right? Is helpingpeople to understand what are
(25:47):
these tests that should beperformed? Why do we perform
them? What does the test tellus? And so the more people can
ex can describe their situation,explain their symptoms,
categorize their symptoms intomeaningful ways. That's what I
think, allows people to be ableto get the better care that they
need and all the tests that theyneed.
Sophia Bouwens (26:10):
Well, the testing is helpful, because, you
know, when the nervous systemkind of starts to break down,
think of the nervous system oryour brain as like your super
computer that runs everything.
It has a pulse on everythingthat happens in your body and
everything that happens to yourbody. If there's one little
section that starts to kind ofnot work so well or is injured,
(26:32):
it can be really debilitatingfor all the other systems that
are connected to that section ofthe nervous system or the brain,
and you can have a likeconstellation of symptoms that
show up and with brain injury,this is one experience where you
don't realize how important thetissue between your ears is
until something happens to it,and it doesn't work super well.
(26:55):
Absolutely,
Unknown (26:59):
I had multiple concussions, and never knew that
my symptoms were from myconcussions, because I was I
walked away from every crash.
You know, when you're on amountain biking trail screaming
down a mountain, your adrenalineis soaring. So when you crash,
you don't feel pain, you don'tyou don't feel brain fog, you
know. So it's like, you just getback on your bike and you keep
(27:21):
riding. And so with all of myconcussions, you know, I never
knew that I was concussed in themoment, and even afterwards,
when I would develop things likebrain fog or difficulty
focusing, you know, I justthought that I was like, Oh, I
just have ADHD. I didn't realizethat it was the symptoms were
from the concussion,
Sophia Bouwens (27:43):
well, because sometimes they don't show up
right away, because this arm isdown, but you have a
compensation happening, and itcan't compensate as well very
long. And so then you havesymptoms that show up days or
weeks afterwards that arerelated to an injury. Yeah?
Unknown (27:58):
And there was a study that was published in 2019 that
was looking at blood flow to thefrontal lobe, and they actually
found that after people gotcleared to go back to their
sport, blood flow to theprefrontal cortex continued to
decline over an entire yearafter the concussion and after
they had gone back to doingwhatever they were doing
(28:19):
athletically. And so I think alot of people don't recognize
that their depression might comeon a year after their
concussion, and they're notmaking that correlation between
the concussion and thedepression because
Sophia Bouwens (28:31):
of this injury to the blood flow to the
prefrontal cortex, which has alot to do with our limbic system
and our motivation, our drive,and it might be more of like a a
poor irrigation of the soil thatleads to a decline of a plant's
vitality, versus like this,chopping off of a branch, right?
Exactly. So that's a way thatit's super important to do this,
(28:52):
like whole global nervous systemtesting to really see what is
intact, what's functioning well,what's not working well. And how
do these things tie together touse what is working well to help
restore and rehabilitate whatisn't working well? And that is
the work we're doing in our lifewith our patients, and what
(29:13):
we're excited to share with ourlife after impact. Yes,
Unknown (29:16):
this is all about giving people the tools that
they need to find the rightpeople, get the right tests and
move forward on their journey.
So
Sophia Bouwens (29:25):
why did we choose the name life after
impact?
Ayla Wolf (29:28):
Life after impact came to me back in 2015
actually, I know I wanted tostart a business in 2015 that
was actually at the time, Ienvisioned it almost more of
like a life coaching business,where I could help people that
have had concussions figure outhow to you know, how to get
(29:50):
help, how to get better. But atthe time I was so I was in
school, working on a doctoratedegree. I was still owning my
own clinic, treating patients.
Ones, and I was conductingresearch, and so trying to
manage a research, a small pilotstudy looking at cerebral blood
flow, seeing patients full time,running a clinic and being in
(30:12):
school life after impact justnever got off the ground. And
then, you know, fast forward allthese years. In 2020 we talked
about life after impact again,
Sophia Bouwens (30:25):
COVID times, right? That was before COVID.
Yeah.
Unknown (30:28):
We were you know, trying to plan how to, like,
resurrect life after impact andthen COVID hit, and so that, you
know,
Sophia Bouwens (30:37):
we're gonna do an episode or five on COVID and
brain fog and the dysautonomiathat can come from that,
Unknown (30:43):
I'm sure. Yes, we definitely need to do that.
Yeah, so that got put on holdagain, and here we are 2024
almost going to 2025 and we arefinally getting this podcast
launched and off the ground.
Sophia Bouwens (30:58):
But we've learned so much so you you've
taught classes to practitionersas part of grad school programs,
also as continuing educationprograms. You've done research.
We've conducted our first studythat will be published on
Unknown (31:12):
post traumatic headaches. It was, it was
published, yeah, the Journal ofNeurotrauma.
Sophia Bouwens (31:16):
I know our first publication on post traumatic
headaches, which our nextepisode. Episode Two, we'll
really dive into post traumaticheadache.
Unknown (31:24):
Yes, we'll, we'll focus on just that specific piece in
the next one.
Sophia Bouwens (31:29):
We have so many good topics. We're going to post
traumatic headache, neckinjuries, dysautonomia, or this
like equilibrium between fightor flight or rest and digest
that can come up with thisdisruption
Unknown (31:41):
and so much more. I mean, the autonomic nervous
system controls our sleepingcycles. It controls so many
things that people just take forgranted, you know, like the fact
that we don't have to thinkabout breathing. We just do it.
And, you know, things like, ifI'm laying down and then I stand
up, it's my autonomic nervoussystem that, you know, is
picking up all these subtlechanges on my position and
(32:03):
altering my heart rate and myblood pressure so that I don't
pass out when I'm standing up.
Because if gravity had its way,blood would not be going up to
our brain, it would be goingdown to our feet, right?
Sophia Bouwens (32:14):
And this neural control that shifts all of those
components right. So this is anervous system has an impact on
everything that goes on in ourbody, everything. We'll talk
about neck injuries and howthose play into things, because
sometimes it's not just aconcussion, it's a traumatic
neck injury, and
Unknown (32:32):
those neck injuries can cause a lot of the same symptoms
as a concussion. So just a neckinjury alone can cause dizziness
and nausea and changes in deathperception. So it's important to
be able to tease out, you know,how much of an injury is coming
from the neck versus what'shappening in the brain, and how
those two are connected andcommunicate with each other.
(32:52):
Because
Sophia Bouwens (32:52):
how does blood get through the to the brain,
through the neck? Right? It'sall connected.
We'll talk about cognitivesymptoms that can come up from
this, that's
Unknown (33:01):
a huge one. I think that's brain fog is one of the
complaints that I hear so oftenfrom people, and in my book, I
actually talk about thisinteresting study where they
were using the mental clutterscale to assess for brain fog
severity in people withconcussions and traumatic brain
injuries. And it was a it was ascale that was originally used
(33:24):
for fibromyalgia patients, andso that's one of the only kind
of like questionnaires out therethat is very specific to brain
fog. It was such a great studyto talk about for the fact that
people experience brain fog. Butthere's not a whole lot being
done to quantify it, and so thatmental clutter scale was
(33:46):
actually a really great way todo that. It's
Sophia Bouwens (33:48):
great so many things have been developed, and
you tell them about me aboutthem, so I'm happy that we can
tell other people about themtoo. What about like vestibular
dysfunction or dizziness?
Feelings of being off balancecan be so common after head
injury, whether it's absolutelydriven to the inner ear, eye or
neck, there's just so manycomponents. We'll talk about eye
movements in relation to headinjuries and just function of
(34:11):
eyes as well. We'll get intomoods, sleep, inflammation,
components that can really wreakhavoc on the brain, the body
overall.
Unknown (34:22):
I love talking about inflammation, brain
inflammation. The reason being,I think the reason why I love
talking about brain inflammationis because at some point in
time, there are probably goingto be blockbuster drugs that
address brain inflammation, thatare, you know, make companies
trillions of dollars, but wedon't have those yet, but what
(34:44):
we do have are some very highquality herbs that can do the
job and do it well. And so Ithink that's why I actually
really like this topic, isbecause there are things out
there. People just don't knowthey exist.
Sophia Bouwens (34:58):
And I'm excited we get to. Share about what we
know about what's out there thatmight not be very widely known.
I think that our experience inChinese medicine really helps us
frame this question. As far asall the difficulties with like
some medical care, as far asstandard care goes, there's no
(35:18):
denying some of the issues thatmodern medicine has, as far as
with recovery or limitations,there's tons of life saving
things that come from it.
Though, I wouldn't be sittinghere right now if it weren't for
the doctors and the therapistsin my hospitalization and posts
that really helped me recover.
That being said with some of thedeficiencies, or the symptoms
(35:42):
where they say, this is kind ofas good as it can get, or, like
with my Bell's Palsy, threemonths to six years, and you'll
be better. There's so much moreout there. But Einstein said one
of my favorite quotes of alltime. He said, a problem cannot
be solved by the same level ofthinking that created it. I
think our background in Chinesemedicine, this whole other way
(36:04):
of looking at the body thatrequires a lot of translation in
understanding the paradigm andthe framework offers a new way
of thinking that's just as validand just as true as what we know
in the biomedical framework, buta different way of thinking
about it that complements andhelps where all those deficits
(36:24):
in modern medicine are. When Ihave learned about functional
neurology and neuroscience, andwhat I've learned about
traditional Chinese medicine andhow the organ system is played
together in that framework, theymirror each other so well,
right? Well,
Unknown (36:39):
I mean, Chinese medicine is a functional system
of medicine like that. It's,it's one of the oldest systems
of functional medicine thatexists. I would say Ayurvedic
medicine and Chinese medicineare the oldest functional
medicine systems out there. Andthe thing that they excel at is
that they see every singleperson as an individual that
(37:00):
needs an individual treatmentplan. And I think you know,
mainstream medicine excels inacute care and in emergency
care, but once things becomechronic, and once people have
had symptoms that are chronicfor months and months and
months, people often need a veryindividualized approach that
takes into account theirbackground and all of their pre
(37:23):
existing issues and situationsand mental health and and then
current situation, currentliving environment, current
stressors, current diet, currentlifestyle. And so I think that
you know, where Chinese medicineand applied clinical
neuroscience come combinedtogether is this really powerful
intersection of taking the mostcutting edge neurological
(37:47):
rehabilitation strategies andpairing that with one of the
oldest systems of functionalmedicine in the world that can
see people in this individualway and see what they need that
is specific to this one uniqueperson, one at a time. Yes,
Sophia Bouwens (38:04):
no, the best way I've heard it described, or I
think about it, is a functionalprecision medicine, because it's
precise and it's based on thefunction of somebody's system.
And the overlap betweenbiomedical advances we have and
these functional components thatcome whether it's from the
traditional Chinese medicinelens or the Ayurvedic lens, or
(38:26):
just what we're seeing in ourtesting functionally and
neurologically, is reallycutting edge, and it takes a
different framework. That's oneof the things I loved about
hearing you first talk aboutdysautonomia and Yang Wei
disharmony, and translatingthis, like classical Chinese
medicine, diagnostic of Yang Weidisharmony, into this modern
(38:49):
biomedical, known conditioncalled dysautonomia, and showing
the parallels of how the ancientChinese were literally
describing dysautonomia withoutknowing it 2000 years ago, yeah,
before the microscope, beforethe understanding of what a
neuron was, what the autonomicnervous system was like, they
didn't have this framework tosee the world the way we do now
(39:12):
today's day and age, but theywere master observers, and they
still describe the functionperfectly, right? Yeah, well,
and
Unknown (39:19):
it's crazy to think that 2000 years ago, they had
that level of understanding,even if they didn't have, you
know, all the fancy terminologyof what we have today with the
field of neuroscience. But whatI always come back to is the
concept that every single systemof medicine is evolving. You
(39:39):
know, obviously mainstreammedicine is evolving so fast
it's hard to stay on top ofeverything. And when it comes to
the brain and the study ofneuroscience, I mean, that's one
of the fastest evolving parts ofmedicine. I mean, they keep
saying the brain is kind of thefinal frontier. There's so much
we don't know, and so the factthat we have information from.
(40:00):
2000 years ago that's stillrelevant today, is pretty
profound, and I think thatpairing that with all of the
advances that we have is sopowerful. And again, it just
comes back to that concept ofbeing curious and being open
minded and being willing to seewhat works.
Sophia Bouwens (40:18):
So I'm excited for our listeners to get to
learn a lot more, and for us toshare some of these exciting,
fascinating things with peoplewho might be suffering or
knowing loved ones who aresuffering from symptoms help
them understand them and recoverfrom them. Ayla, do you want to
talk about our affiliate puritycoffee and what we have to offer
(40:40):
for our listeners.
Unknown (40:42):
I do. I started buying purity coffee over two years
ago, and one of the reasons wasbecause, with all of my
concussions, I became verysensitive to mold, and I would
notice that there were timeswhen I would go to a coffee shop
and I'd order a cup of coffee,and as soon as I drank it, I
(41:04):
would feel so tired, and mybrain fog would just get, I
mean, off the charts bad. And soI'm like, Okay, what is going
on? Right? Why is it that I canhave coffee one day I feel fine.
The next day I have coffee, andI feel like someone just drugged
me. And so I started to do someresearch. It turns out coffee
beans are a huge source of moldtoxins if they're not dried
(41:26):
properly. And so when you havecoffee that hasn't been dried
correctly, hasn't been processedcorrectly, you can develop
mycotoxins in the coffee. And alot of coffee that is not
organic is also sprayed withpesticides. Pesticides also are
not good for your gut or yourgut brain axis. In my research,
(41:48):
I discovered that I needed tostart buying coffee that was
free of pesticides, free ofmold, and so I switched over to
purity coffee, because they areorganic. They are getting their
coffee beans sourced from peoplewho practice regenerative
farming practices, and so thesoil quality is good. They're
(42:09):
not spraying their beans withpesticides. They test for mold
to make sure there's no mold ormycotoxins in their coffee. And
as soon as I switched over, Inoticed that I don't feel tired,
I don't have brain fog, I don'tfeel jittery, I know that I'm
not dumping pesticides in mybody. And so I loved the fact
that I had gotten these littlesatchels the travel packs, and
(42:31):
they were just piling up at theoffice. And so one day, you text
me when you're at the clinic,and I think I was at home, and
you said, Can I try this coffee?
I
Sophia Bouwens (42:40):
didn't believe it. You've been talking about
this coffee forever. I was tiredthat day. I think I didn't have
coffee before I left the house,and I was like, I gotta just
take one of these satchels. Andit was the best coffee I've had.
I've had a lot of coffee. I've,like, even been in Guatemala
coffee bean picking and, oh,
Ayla Wolf (42:58):
I know we're both coffee snobs!
Sophia Bouwens (43:00):
and this coffee it, you can taste it, you can
smell it. You feel like, I feelclear when I drink it, not
jittery or like rushed. It'scoffee as it should be.
Ayla Wolf (43:11):
yeah, it, it tastes amazing. And so I've been
drinking for two years the Flowbrand, or like the flow flavor,
Sophia Bouwens (43:15):
I've done coffee enemas for liver health and
which I think is their originaland then just recently, they had
sent a free sample of somethingcalled Protect and it's a
different kind of blend of theircoffee. And so it's supposed to
help improve your liverfunction. And if you know me,
(43:35):
I'm constantly taking herbs formy liver. So when I was like, I
can drink coffee for my liver.
function. There's coffee can beused in all good. Coffee has so
many applications, but there'sinteresting discussion about
coffee and brain injuryrecovery, because some people
are more sensitive to it. Do youthink that the primary driver of
(43:57):
that could be some of themycotoxins in there?
Unknown (43:59):
Well, I mean, that was definitely my case. There's a
lot of research looking into theblood brain barrier. And after
people have a concussion orbrain injury, the blood brain
barrier opens up to allow foraspects of the peripheral immune
system to enter into the brainand help heal the brain. But if
that doesn't resolve after, youknow, an appropriate couple of
(44:22):
days to a couple of weeks,people can have chronic
leakiness of the blood brainbarrier, if that happens over
time, that can create a lot ofchronic neuro inflammation. And
they're looking at this kind of,quote, leaky blood brain barrier
as a mechanism that's involvedin other neurodegenerative
conditions as well. The reasonwe're talking about this is
(44:44):
because, if any of our listenerswould like to try a cleaner,
healthier coffee, you can go topurity coffee.com and enter
promo code life after 20 for 20%off your first order. I
Sophia Bouwens (44:59):
was glad you had in the office and I could try it
out. It was delicious.
Thanks for listening.
We'll be back with episode twoon post traumatic headache. You.
Welcome to the life after impact podcast, where
we do a deep dive into allthings concussion and brain
injury related. We'll talk aboutall the different symptoms that
can follow a brain injury,different testing methods,
different practitioners outthere, and different therapies
available. I'm Sophia Bouwens.
I'm here with Dr Ayla Wolf, andwe will be your guides on the
(00:22):
journey to living your best lifeafter impact.
Ayla Wolf (00:27):
Sophia, what's new?
Sophia Bouwens (00:30):
I'm super excited to be here. We have
worked so hard to get to thispoint, and we have so much to
share that I'm just burstingwith excitement about all the
content and topics that we'llcover and how we're going to
help reach people out there. Howare you feeling?
Unknown (00:50):
I'm excited as well.
This has been a project thatwe've been talking about for a
long time. There's been so muchleading up to this, and at the
end of the day, everything thatwe've been working on, the book
that I've been writing, it's allmeant to try to get information
to more people. Because rightnow, up until this point, we've
been treating one patient at atime, often telling each person,
(01:12):
similar things, similarinformation. And I just want to
bring all the information to themasses.
Sophia Bouwens (01:22):
Yes, your book! You've been working on this book
for a long time, and I'm reallyexcited about it. Why don't you
talk about it for a moment?
Unknown (01:29):
Okay, I think it took me a while to figure out how to
organize the information in away that was going to be most
helpful to people. And I thoughtback to what the common
experience is of being on bothsides of the equation, being
both somebody that has had lotsof concussions, has had all the
(01:49):
symptoms, and now being on theother side of it, where these
people are coming to me, andwhat I realize is that when
people come to see me a they'veusually been to like, 10 other
doctors, right? They've alreadydone a lot of other therapies.
I'm kind of their last hope. Butwhen they come in, they start
describing their symptoms, andusually people start bouncing
(02:13):
all over in their timeline,right? And they're like, Well, I
tried this, and I did that, andI have this symptom, and,
usually there's tears andthere's frustration, and you
just feel all of that, right?
You feel all the suffering, and90 minutes could easily go by,
and the questions that I havehaven't been answered, right?
So, so over the years, I'vedeveloped a way of really
(02:34):
getting a lot done in that firstappointment. And so the first
step is understanding how thisconcussion is manifesting for
this individual person. And somy book starts out with a
questionnaire that is 48questions. It's not short, but
what it does is it allows peopleto make meaning out of their
(02:56):
symptoms, and to put theirsymptoms into these eight
specific categories that thenallow people to read the chapter
that corresponds to thatcategory. Because it hasn't
escaped me that people that havebrain injuries and concussions
often have visual symptoms. Theyhave cognitive fatigue. It can
be hard to read a book. I mean,there was a time when I would
(03:19):
start to read a book and I'd,you know, fall asleep within
three minutes, right? I knowwhat that feels like for me.
Writing a book needed to be themedium that I started with, just
to get all the informationthat's rolling around my head
onto paper in an organized way.
And eventually, I was like, oncethe book is done, then maybe I
(03:41):
can turn it into an audio book,and then we can do the podcast,
and we can start getting theinformation out in other ways,
but for the purposes of thebook, people will fill out the
questionnaire, and thenwhichever categories they have
the most symptoms in, they cango read the chapter that
corresponds to that category. Sowe have chapters that focus on
(04:01):
post traumatic headaches,chapters that focus on traumatic
neck injuries, on autonomicnervous system dysfunction,
which can cause things likenausea and dizziness and chronic
pain and exercise intolerance.
POTS, Postural OrthostaticTachycardia Syndrome. We have a
chapter specifically oncognitive symptoms, a chapter on
vestibular disorders, sodizziness, vertigo, what we call
(04:26):
non spinning, vertigo, symptomsof rocking, bobbing, swaying,
and things like disequilibrium,poor balance. A chapter on
vision, eye movements. Eyemovement disorders that can
cause a lot of problems withpeople being able to be in front
of a computer screen, right. Andthen a chapter that gets into
(04:49):
mood dysfunction, and a lot ofpeople will experience things
that they might not even traceback to the brain injury or the
concussion. Sometimes depressioncan come on a year after, you
know, or anxiety can kind ofslowly develop as people have
one concussion or multiple subconcussive hits to the head. On
(05:11):
top of that, maybe
Sophia Bouwens (05:13):
they recovered fine from two, but now this
third one, which wasn't eventhat much, is like totally going
off the wall, and they arereally anxious all the time
Ayla Wolf (05:21):
Exactly, yeah. So sometimes these symptoms, in
terms of even irritability andshort temper, people don't even
trace back to their head injury.
So we get into that topic andthen sleep, because brain
injuries can definitely affectpeople's circadian rhythms,
their ability to fall asleep,their ability to stay asleep. So
that's huge. So we get into allthese different factors. And so
(05:42):
with each of these chapters, Ibreak down what are all of the
different tests that are outthere, not just kind of basic
conventional tests, but allthese other kind of functional
tests that people can do. Andthen we talk about different
treatment strategies that peoplemay not have even heard about or
even considered, and so thewhole book is meant to really
(06:04):
introduce a meaningful way ofcategorizing their symptoms,
understanding what tests areavailable, and learning about
all the different therapies andoptions that are out there that
can help them to heal. And thenlastly, I have a big chapter on
brain inflammation.
Sophia Bouwens (06:23):
You love to talk about brain inflammation? Yes,
Ayla Wolf (06:28):
know, preliminary evidence to look at the presence
of chronic inflammation thatmight be playing a role in some
cases, of people that havechronic, persistent post
(06:49):
concussion symptoms as well. AndI've certainly clinically
experienced a huge improvementin people's symptoms like brain
fog and cognitive fatigue whenwe work with people on that
inflammation front.
Sophia Bouwens (07:03):
this book isn't just about like, here is a bunch
of conditions after injury. It'smore about, here's what they
are, here's how they can betested, and here's some options
for treating them and workingthem that you might not know
about, or your therapist or yourcare team might not know about.
Maybe this will empower you toaccess them. You don't know what
you don't know. So this bookhelps bridge those gaps.
Ayla Wolf (07:26):
Exactly. This is a book that I'm hoping people will
buy and write all over it andhighlight things and bring it to
their doctor. There's tons ofquestionnaires in the book.
There's lots of tests that arein there. So my goal was to just
give people all the tools thatthey can hold in their hands,
and I said, bring with them totheir doctor's appointments, ask
Sophia Bouwens (07:45):
It's a huge number of people. And every
about different tests, trydifferent therapies. I just
wanted to get the information tothe masses. You know, the
research says 50 million peoplearound the world have a brain
injury, and every year, that's alot of people.
(08:06):
single injury can look differentor manifest differently. And so
it can be really confusing todive into these things. Your
book starts to explain that orunravel that.
Unknown (08:18):
Yeah, there. You know, at the end of the day, I think
what we do, obviously, we treateverybody as an individual, and
we create these highlycustomized treatment programs
for people. And so my book iskind of my attempt to show
people how they can create theirown individualized treatment
plan and go find what they needin this very confusing world of
(08:40):
medicine, and for
Sophia Bouwens (08:41):
the people out there who are having difficulty
with reading, or maybe don'tlearn so well by that, you can
listen to the podcast, orthere'll be an audiobook version
coming down the pipeline. Yeah,we want to be neurodiverse in
who we reach
Unknown (08:57):
Exactly. And, you know, hopefully maybe some videos out
there, too little snippets, butyeah, I think this podcast was
really the way that we couldbring the information from the
book to people in a differentformat, if reading is just too
much of a struggle. But I thinkbefore we kind of dive into all
that heavy stuff, people don'tknow who we are, so I think that
(09:19):
we should introduce ourselves alittle bit give people our
background on why we're doingwhat we're doing and how we got
there. So why don't you start?
Sophia Bouwens (09:27):
Well, I found my way to studying the nervous
system in my undergraduatedegree on in neuroscience, and I
was looking at pain, and decidedto study acupuncture effect on
the nervous system in regards topain, and so I designed this
study. We were givingacupuncture to rats and testing
(09:48):
there.
Ayla Wolf (09:49):
How old were you at this time?
I think I was like 19 or 20years old. I was a young pup. It
was like my third year ofundergrad.
Unknown (09:56):
Okay, so when you're 19, what makes you decide? I'm
studying pain, and I want to tryto use acupuncture as my
therapeutic tool.
Sophia Bouwens (10:05):
I never thought I'd find myself in a lab testing
rats with this, but I startedout wanting to go to medical
school, and was a pre medstudent, and had kind of in that
journey, decided I don't want todo surgeries, and I don't want
to manage medications. I don'twant to have lives in my hands.
(10:25):
I want to help people just livea better life, like functionally
and operate better. I want toimprove quality of life and
activities of daily living. ButI kept finding in the medical
field, as I was finding myexperience there that wasn't
necessarily what I was gettinginto with going to medical
school, was more life savingtechnologies, and that, for me,
(10:48):
was hard. So kind of my thirdyear, when I had done all my pre
med work, decided, like, maybe Idon't want to go to med school.
So I turned tracks to studyneuroscience, and in this same
period of time had the onset ofBell's Palsy. Come on. Okay,
Unknown (11:04):
okay, so that was your first foray into acupuncture -
Bell's Palsy.
Sophia Bouwens (11:09):
Rewind back to when I was 16 and I fell
snowboarding and took a reallymean, nasty fall, cranked my
neck. Had felt like really weirdon my face for a while after
that, got on a plane to go toMexico with my mom the next day,
and by the time I landed inMexico, I had a total paralysis
on one side of my face. My momwas like, Oh my gosh, are you
(11:30):
having a stroke? Here we are inCancun for a week. Like, what
are we gonna do? So because youwere in Cancun, we found an
American trained chiropractorand went to see him not knowing,
like, what to do for medicalcare. He ruled out that they had
a stroke, and just said, I hadthis condition called Bell's
Palsy, which is a paralysis ofthe facial nerve, which is a
(11:51):
cranial nerve. And he said, Ican adjust you, and probably
when you get back to the UnitedStates, you can go to your
doctor and they might give yousteroids, and they'll just tell
you, like, six months to threeyears and you'll be better. But
I haven't seen chiropractic workfor this so much as I have seen
acupuncture. So also, when youget back, you should go see an
acupuncturist.
Unknown (12:13):
Okay, so the chiropractor on the beach in
Mexico told you to go see anacupuncturist once you got home.
Ayla Wolf (12:18):
I thought this was off the wall. I was like, Oh my
gosh, how is acupuncture gonnahelp me? That's so weird, but
I'm glad I didn't have a stroke,and the facial paralysis,
cranial nerve injury made senseto me, because my neck hurt and
I had all this other stuff withmy shoulder anyway, so I got
back to United States and didexactly what he said, went to my
(12:40):
doctor, who gave me a steroid.
After about three weeks ofstaring at me, my mom got really
sick of seeing me suffer withthis facial paralysis, like I
couldn't taste on one side of mytongue, my eye wouldn't blink. I
had like my smile was like oneside was bright smile, the other
side was just stone face, right?
Yeah, pictures from this timewere not cute, so she made me go
(13:04):
get acupuncture because I was aminor she's like, Sophia, it
helped my frozen shoulder. Maybeit'll help with your frozen
face. So I went and I got atreatment, and the acupuncturist
was phenomenal. Later thatnight, I could kind of start to
feel my lip, and was asking mymom, like, can I I'm thinking,
I'm moving my face. Is itmoving? She's like, No, it's
(13:25):
not. Within three days, I wasfully recovered, knowing what I
know now. I know that's yourlaugh. Like, can be really
stubborn. She told me to comeback in a week for follow up,
and I didn't go back. We didn'teven need to - just one and
done, one and done. I was curedin three days, one treatment,
which is totally not normallyhow that happens.
Sophia Bouwens (13:47):
it's great. It's a miracle. So fast forward. Here
I am in undergrad, third year,stressed as heck, thinking like
I'm not gonna go to med schoolafter all this work I've done
and I got Bell's policy again.
Oh, so as a neuroscience majorgetting a neurological
condition, knowing I'm not goingto go see a medical doctor, I'm
going to go to an acupuncturist,it reframed my thinking about
(14:10):
how acupuncture was working in aneuroscience lens. And so I got
interested in that and starteddoing research on it. I had my
advisor had was a big painresearcher, so I used his
research to frame a questionabout acupuncture and how it was
working the nervous system. Alot of the research wasn't very
(14:31):
good quality. It had terriblebias. A lot of was coming out of
China and not structured the waythat studies are now. So I
couldn't answer any questionslike, how this was working, but
just that it did work because wedid this testing in rats and saw
the reflexes change, which is abig deal if you're a
neuroscience person, but thatjust led to more questions which
(14:55):
made me really understand, like,if I want to understand. And
acupuncture have to gounderstand the language and the
framework which they're studyingit from. So instead of going to
grad school for neuroscience, Idecided I would go to grad
school for acupuncture and thengo on to get a PhD in
neuroscience, using acupunctureas my framework my thesis to
show the world how amazingacupuncture was at neuro
(15:19):
recovery.
Ayla Wolf (15:21):
Okay, so that's your plan for world domination.
Sophia Bouwens (15:24):
Still on that track, just a different way. So
went to school for acupuncture,got my masters started
practicing. Six months later,was hit by a drunk driver on my
way home from work and sustaineda severe brain injury. Woke up
six days later from a medicallyinduced coma at Regions
Hospital, they asked me what dayit was, who the President was,
(15:47):
what year it was. I wasn'treally sure. Then they tried to
explain to me, Well, the reasonyou don't know is because you've
had a severe diffuse axonaltraumatic brain injury. What
that is is, I stopped him rightthere. I was like, I know what
that is!
Ayla Wolf (16:02):
so you knew the answer to that question!
Sophia Bouwens (16:03):
I knew that one.
And they were just, they kind oflooked at me. I still remember
the look on their face of like,what I was like, I have a degree
in neuroscience, and I'vestudied brain health and
injuries. This is going to be ajourney, but I know something
you don't know. I knowacupuncture is a great
neuromodulator, and it can helpthe nervous system recovery. And
(16:24):
this is going to be a longjourney, but I'm going to do
better than you think I will.
Let's go.
Unknown (16:33):
All right. So day one, wake up from a coma. You're told
you have a diffuse axonalinjury. You say I know exactly
what that is, but I can getthrough this because I have
insights into all kinds of othertherapies that maybe aren't the
first go to therapy that's beingoffered to people in a hospital.
Sophia Bouwens (16:53):
Yes, well, that being said, I was also young. I
was super healthy. I was workingout multiple times a week. I had
just finished acupunctureschool, so it's like this elite,
pristine health component,because I had all my systems
Unknown (17:08):
right? I like to say you're in your mitochondrial
underway, prime.
Sophia Bouwens (17:11):
Yes, I was in my mitochondrial prime. And I was
also with, like, one of the bestrehab teams in the region. So
that was a big component aswell. I'm not saying acupuncture
was the only thing, buttailoring it into my experience
helped me avoid things likeTracheotomies or recover bowel
movement function, start my gaittraining better, faster,
(17:32):
stronger, and then my cerebralblood flow improved. My
inflammation came down like Ijust I did have better outcomes.
Eventually, the team was soimpressed by outcomes, they
hired me. So now I work for thatteam.
Unknown (17:45):
I love that full circle story of the fact that you did
your rehab at the Neurosciencecenter and Regions.
Sophia Bouwens (17:51):
The neuroscience center wasn't built yet. Oh,
okay, it opened the next year.
Unknown (17:55):
Got it. So that was, like the beginnings of it.
Sophia Bouwens (17:58):
It was during that time all my therapists were
like, hold on, hold on. You're aneuroscience background, like
undergraduate background, you'rean acupuncturist and you're a
brain injury survivor, usingacupuncture to really get
through this. You should talk tothem when you're better and
stronger and you feel ready, youshould talk to them about adding
acupuncture in at the newneuroscience center opening next
(18:19):
year, because we're seeing thisis really helping you, and we
want you to do more with it. SoI did. I reached out to the
director after my lastappointment. I saw this phone
number on the wall. Questionsabout the neuroscience center.
Contact this number or send anemail. So I sent an email and
got connected with the rehabdirector at the time, Marnie
Farrell. Shout out to Marnie,who met with me. She was
(18:43):
interested and open, and satdown with me and was interested
and proposed me to have thisposition, eventually set me up
with the research team there,which we conducted this research
study we just published lastmonth.
And it's kind of went off fromthere. Yeah, that's
Unknown (19:00):
From day one of kind of meeting you and hearing about
your connections with theneuroscience center, I have just
loved how open they have been toincorporating a lot of different
therapies into recovery. I thinkit's rare to have a team of
people that are all equally openminded and willing to explore
and it's been a great it's beena great relationship.
Sophia Bouwens (19:24):
I agree with you in the openness. It really is
the hallmark of a goodpractitioner, whether it be a
medical doctor or a physicaltherapist or an acupuncturist,
someone who understands theydon't know everything and are
open to learning more to improvegains. I think that's one of the
missions I want with thispodcast, is to just explain and
share how everybody isdifferent. Every nervous system
(19:46):
is different. It might respondto different things in different
ways. So you need a team who'sopen to exploring those options
with you. The team I work withis that which is super cool. I
Unknown (19:58):
I think curiosity is one of the most important
character traits of a successfulclinician.
Sophia Bouwens (20:05):
I agree, but I want to circle back to when I
found out about you after thisjourney, right? I'm walking
around the lake, and I hear youtalking about the nervous system
and acupuncture in this profoundway that finally connected these
dots that no one had connectedbefore, and that sparked my
curiosity, and I have to give alike a shout out to you, because
(20:28):
when I reached out to you,telling you who I was, knowing
that you were coming toMinnesota, and asking if you'd
meet me for lunch, you said yes,and you were open to exploring
options and talking, and thatled us to where we are, which,
given your background, I waslike, she's never gonna like,
who am I? This littleacupuncturist in Minnesota, I
(20:49):
was taken to, like, listen tome, or meet with me, and you
did. So I want you to share alittle bit about who you are,
because I know all about youramazingness, but who are you?
Ayla Wolf (21:00):
So my journey, we have a lot of parallels in our
journeys. Although you've hadkind of one single intense
traumatic brain injury, I've hadmany, many, many sports related
concussions, and probablynumerous sub concussive hits,
hits to my head, but we bothstarted out in pre med, and so
(21:23):
when I was doing my kind ofundergrad, I basically was doing
pre med. However, I knew that Iwanted to do something in the
kind of natural medicine world.
So my goal was, was not to gointo med school. It was to go
into something like naturopathicmedicine. And there was a school
in Australia that had anaturopathic program. I ended up
(21:47):
going to that school for a year,and that's when I got highly
fascinated and drawn into theworld of Chinese herbal
medicine. And so when I cameback from my time in Australia,
I ended up enrolling in themaster's program that we both
ended up doing, and I was alwaysfascinated with being able to
(22:09):
explain acupuncture and herbalmedicine from a scientific
perspective. So even going backto, like, the age of 13, I
remember studying herbs, andwhenever I would get my hands on
a paper that would explain thescientific reason for why this
particular plant had the abilityto have some kind of healing
(22:32):
effect in the body, I wasfascinated by that. So I don't
know what it was with that, butmy entire life and career, I've
always been extremely fascinatedwith the scientific explanation
for how things work. I can get alittle woo, woo as well. But,
you know, I've got one foot inthe Woo and one foot in the
(22:55):
science. It's a good balance.
Keeps you curious, keeps youinvolved.
Unknown (23:00):
Yeah, yeah. So both of us, after we graduated from our
master's degrees in Chinesemedicine, went into fertility.
And so I think that's anotherinteresting parallel. But while
I was treating people andhelping people get pregnant, I
was racking up my ownconcussions, and so, no, I
(23:25):
trained jiu jitsu a little bit.
I trained MMA a little bit, butI didn't, I ended up not
fighting because my concussion.
I had a couple of concussionsclose together, and at the time,
I was 36 I was training everysingle day, I thought I wanted
to fight in the ring, and Iended up having to stop all my
(23:47):
high impact sports because myconcussions were causing a lot
of problems backing up. Youknow, we talked about this a
little bit before the this ideathat when I was specializing in
fertility, I would see peoplecome in and they would go to
people who were not specialists,and they would maybe have, like,
(24:08):
one test here, and then try thisone thing when that didn't work,
they'd have another test, andthen they'd try that one thing
when that didn't work, thenthey'd do another test, and then
try this other thing. And it wasa very hodgepodge approach. So I
saw this play out in the worldof fertility, and I actually see
this same phenomena playing outin the world of concussions
right now, where people will geta concussion, they will have
(24:32):
many, many different symptoms,and they might go to a doctor
for one thing, and then a doctormight say, well, let's try this,
this medication. And then theytry that, and it doesn't work.
So then maybe they go and theysee a chiropractor, and maybe
one or two symptoms get better,but they still have these other
10 symptoms. And then theymaybe, you know, go back to
their other doctor, and thenthey try a new medication, and
(24:54):
it's this very hodgepodgeapproach to healing. What my
approach. Has become. And whatI've really recognized is you
need to do all the tests upfront. And so, in an ideal
world, when somebody has aconcussion, you would run them
through all the systems, almostlike when you bring your car in,
(25:17):
right? And you get your carchecked, they plug it into, you
know, everything's electronicthese days, so they can plug it
in.
Sophia Bouwens (25:23):
If only we could do a plugin for us, like run
this through the computer,right, exactly.
Unknown (25:27):
Well, that's kind of what we are doing, it's a lot of
different tech involved. So, youknow, you plug your car in, you
run a diagnostics, and then itspits out, here's what's wrong.
Well, basically that's what weneed to do with the brain. So,
bringing it back to the podcast,that's really what this podcast
is about, right? Is helpingpeople to understand what are
(25:47):
these tests that should beperformed? Why do we perform
them? What does the test tellus? And so the more people can
ex can describe their situation,explain their symptoms,
categorize their symptoms intomeaningful ways. That's what I
think, allows people to be ableto get the better care that they
need and all the tests that theyneed.
Sophia Bouwens (26:10):
Well, the testing is helpful, because, you
know, when the nervous systemkind of starts to break down,
think of the nervous system oryour brain as like your super
computer that runs everything.
It has a pulse on everythingthat happens in your body and
everything that happens to yourbody. If there's one little
section that starts to kind ofnot work so well or is injured,
(26:32):
it can be really debilitatingfor all the other systems that
are connected to that section ofthe nervous system or the brain,
and you can have a likeconstellation of symptoms that
show up and with brain injury,this is one experience where you
don't realize how important thetissue between your ears is
until something happens to it,and it doesn't work super well.
(26:55):
Absolutely,
Unknown (26:59):
I had multiple concussions, and never knew that
my symptoms were from myconcussions, because I was I
walked away from every crash.
You know, when you're on amountain biking trail screaming
down a mountain, your adrenalineis soaring. So when you crash,
you don't feel pain, you don'tyou don't feel brain fog, you
know. So it's like, you just getback on your bike and you keep
(27:21):
riding. And so with all of myconcussions, you know, I never
knew that I was concussed in themoment, and even afterwards,
when I would develop things likebrain fog or difficulty
focusing, you know, I justthought that I was like, Oh, I
just have ADHD. I didn't realizethat it was the symptoms were
from the concussion,
Sophia Bouwens (27:43):
well, because sometimes they don't show up
right away, because this arm isdown, but you have a
compensation happening, and itcan't compensate as well very
long. And so then you havesymptoms that show up days or
weeks afterwards that arerelated to an injury. Yeah?
Unknown (27:58):
And there was a study that was published in 2019 that
was looking at blood flow to thefrontal lobe, and they actually
found that after people gotcleared to go back to their
sport, blood flow to theprefrontal cortex continued to
decline over an entire yearafter the concussion and after
they had gone back to doingwhatever they were doing
(28:19):
athletically. And so I think alot of people don't recognize
that their depression might comeon a year after their
concussion, and they're notmaking that correlation between
the concussion and thedepression because
Sophia Bouwens (28:31):
of this injury to the blood flow to the
prefrontal cortex, which has alot to do with our limbic system
and our motivation, our drive,and it might be more of like a a
poor irrigation of the soil thatleads to a decline of a plant's
vitality, versus like this,chopping off of a branch, right?
Exactly. So that's a way thatit's super important to do this,
(28:52):
like whole global nervous systemtesting to really see what is
intact, what's functioning well,what's not working well. And how
do these things tie together touse what is working well to help
restore and rehabilitate whatisn't working well? And that is
the work we're doing in our lifewith our patients, and what
(29:13):
we're excited to share with ourlife after impact. Yes,
Unknown (29:16):
this is all about giving people the tools that
they need to find the rightpeople, get the right tests and
move forward on their journey.
So
Sophia Bouwens (29:25):
why did we choose the name life after
impact?
Ayla Wolf (29:28):
Life after impact came to me back in 2015
actually, I know I wanted tostart a business in 2015 that
was actually at the time, Ienvisioned it almost more of
like a life coaching business,where I could help people that
have had concussions figure outhow to you know, how to get
(29:50):
help, how to get better. But atthe time I was so I was in
school, working on a doctoratedegree. I was still owning my
own clinic, treating patients.
Ones, and I was conductingresearch, and so trying to
manage a research, a small pilotstudy looking at cerebral blood
flow, seeing patients full time,running a clinic and being in
(30:12):
school life after impact justnever got off the ground. And
then, you know, fast forward allthese years. In 2020 we talked
about life after impact again,
Sophia Bouwens (30:25):
COVID times, right? That was before COVID.
Yeah.
Unknown (30:28):
We were you know, trying to plan how to, like,
resurrect life after impact andthen COVID hit, and so that, you
know,
Sophia Bouwens (30:37):
we're gonna do an episode or five on COVID and
brain fog and the dysautonomiathat can come from that,
Unknown (30:43):
I'm sure. Yes, we definitely need to do that.
Yeah, so that got put on holdagain, and here we are 2024
almost going to 2025 and we arefinally getting this podcast
launched and off the ground.
Sophia Bouwens (30:58):
But we've learned so much so you you've
taught classes to practitionersas part of grad school programs,
also as continuing educationprograms. You've done research.
We've conducted our first studythat will be published on
Unknown (31:12):
post traumatic headaches. It was, it was
published, yeah, the Journal ofNeurotrauma.
Sophia Bouwens (31:16):
I know our first publication on post traumatic
headaches, which our nextepisode. Episode Two, we'll
really dive into post traumaticheadache.
Unknown (31:24):
Yes, we'll, we'll focus on just that specific piece in
the next one.
Sophia Bouwens (31:29):
We have so many good topics. We're going to post
traumatic headache, neckinjuries, dysautonomia, or this
like equilibrium between fightor flight or rest and digest
that can come up with thisdisruption
Unknown (31:41):
and so much more. I mean, the autonomic nervous
system controls our sleepingcycles. It controls so many
things that people just take forgranted, you know, like the fact
that we don't have to thinkabout breathing. We just do it.
And, you know, things like, ifI'm laying down and then I stand
up, it's my autonomic nervoussystem that, you know, is
picking up all these subtlechanges on my position and
(32:03):
altering my heart rate and myblood pressure so that I don't
pass out when I'm standing up.
Because if gravity had its way,blood would not be going up to
our brain, it would be goingdown to our feet, right?
Sophia Bouwens (32:14):
And this neural control that shifts all of those
components right. So this is anervous system has an impact on
everything that goes on in ourbody, everything. We'll talk
about neck injuries and howthose play into things, because
sometimes it's not just aconcussion, it's a traumatic
neck injury, and
Unknown (32:32):
those neck injuries can cause a lot of the same symptoms
as a concussion. So just a neckinjury alone can cause dizziness
and nausea and changes in deathperception. So it's important to
be able to tease out, you know,how much of an injury is coming
from the neck versus what'shappening in the brain, and how
those two are connected andcommunicate with each other.
(32:52):
Because
Sophia Bouwens (32:52):
how does blood get through the to the brain,
through the neck? Right? It'sall connected.
We'll talk about cognitivesymptoms that can come up from
this, that's
Unknown (33:01):
a huge one. I think that's brain fog is one of the
complaints that I hear so oftenfrom people, and in my book, I
actually talk about thisinteresting study where they
were using the mental clutterscale to assess for brain fog
severity in people withconcussions and traumatic brain
injuries. And it was a it was ascale that was originally used
(33:24):
for fibromyalgia patients, andso that's one of the only kind
of like questionnaires out therethat is very specific to brain
fog. It was such a great studyto talk about for the fact that
people experience brain fog. Butthere's not a whole lot being
done to quantify it, and so thatmental clutter scale was
(33:46):
actually a really great way todo that. It's
Sophia Bouwens (33:48):
great so many things have been developed, and
you tell them about me aboutthem, so I'm happy that we can
tell other people about themtoo. What about like vestibular
dysfunction or dizziness?
Feelings of being off balancecan be so common after head
injury, whether it's absolutelydriven to the inner ear, eye or
neck, there's just so manycomponents. We'll talk about eye
movements in relation to headinjuries and just function of
(34:11):
eyes as well. We'll get intomoods, sleep, inflammation,
components that can really wreakhavoc on the brain, the body
overall.
Unknown (34:22):
I love talking about inflammation, brain
inflammation. The reason being,I think the reason why I love
talking about brain inflammationis because at some point in
time, there are probably goingto be blockbuster drugs that
address brain inflammation, thatare, you know, make companies
trillions of dollars, but wedon't have those yet, but what
(34:44):
we do have are some very highquality herbs that can do the
job and do it well. And so Ithink that's why I actually
really like this topic, isbecause there are things out
there. People just don't knowthey exist.
Sophia Bouwens (34:58):
And I'm excited we get to. Share about what we
know about what's out there thatmight not be very widely known.
I think that our experience inChinese medicine really helps us
frame this question. As far asall the difficulties with like
some medical care, as far asstandard care goes, there's no
(35:18):
denying some of the issues thatmodern medicine has, as far as
with recovery or limitations,there's tons of life saving
things that come from it.
Though, I wouldn't be sittinghere right now if it weren't for
the doctors and the therapistsin my hospitalization and posts
that really helped me recover.
That being said with some of thedeficiencies, or the symptoms
(35:42):
where they say, this is kind ofas good as it can get, or, like
with my Bell's Palsy, threemonths to six years, and you'll
be better. There's so much moreout there. But Einstein said one
of my favorite quotes of alltime. He said, a problem cannot
be solved by the same level ofthinking that created it. I
think our background in Chinesemedicine, this whole other way
(36:04):
of looking at the body thatrequires a lot of translation in
understanding the paradigm andthe framework offers a new way
of thinking that's just as validand just as true as what we know
in the biomedical framework, buta different way of thinking
about it that complements andhelps where all those deficits
(36:24):
in modern medicine are. When Ihave learned about functional
neurology and neuroscience, andwhat I've learned about
traditional Chinese medicine andhow the organ system is played
together in that framework, theymirror each other so well,
right? Well,
Unknown (36:39):
I mean, Chinese medicine is a functional system
of medicine like that. It's,it's one of the oldest systems
of functional medicine thatexists. I would say Ayurvedic
medicine and Chinese medicineare the oldest functional
medicine systems out there. Andthe thing that they excel at is
that they see every singleperson as an individual that
(37:00):
needs an individual treatmentplan. And I think you know,
mainstream medicine excels inacute care and in emergency
care, but once things becomechronic, and once people have
had symptoms that are chronicfor months and months and
months, people often need a veryindividualized approach that
takes into account theirbackground and all of their pre
(37:23):
existing issues and situationsand mental health and and then
current situation, currentliving environment, current
stressors, current diet, currentlifestyle. And so I think that
you know, where Chinese medicineand applied clinical
neuroscience come combinedtogether is this really powerful
intersection of taking the mostcutting edge neurological
(37:47):
rehabilitation strategies andpairing that with one of the
oldest systems of functionalmedicine in the world that can
see people in this individualway and see what they need that
is specific to this one uniqueperson, one at a time. Yes,
Sophia Bouwens (38:04):
no, the best way I've heard it described, or I
think about it, is a functionalprecision medicine, because it's
precise and it's based on thefunction of somebody's system.
And the overlap betweenbiomedical advances we have and
these functional components thatcome whether it's from the
traditional Chinese medicinelens or the Ayurvedic lens, or
(38:26):
just what we're seeing in ourtesting functionally and
neurologically, is reallycutting edge, and it takes a
different framework. That's oneof the things I loved about
hearing you first talk aboutdysautonomia and Yang Wei
disharmony, and translatingthis, like classical Chinese
medicine, diagnostic of Yang Weidisharmony, into this modern
(38:49):
biomedical, known conditioncalled dysautonomia, and showing
the parallels of how the ancientChinese were literally
describing dysautonomia withoutknowing it 2000 years ago, yeah,
before the microscope, beforethe understanding of what a
neuron was, what the autonomicnervous system was like, they
didn't have this framework tosee the world the way we do now
(39:12):
today's day and age, but theywere master observers, and they
still describe the functionperfectly, right? Yeah, well,
and
Unknown (39:19):
it's crazy to think that 2000 years ago, they had
that level of understanding,even if they didn't have, you
know, all the fancy terminologyof what we have today with the
field of neuroscience. But whatI always come back to is the
concept that every single systemof medicine is evolving. You
(39:39):
know, obviously mainstreammedicine is evolving so fast
it's hard to stay on top ofeverything. And when it comes to
the brain and the study ofneuroscience, I mean, that's one
of the fastest evolving parts ofmedicine. I mean, they keep
saying the brain is kind of thefinal frontier. There's so much
we don't know, and so the factthat we have information from.
(40:00):
2000 years ago that's stillrelevant today, is pretty
profound, and I think thatpairing that with all of the
advances that we have is sopowerful. And again, it just
comes back to that concept ofbeing curious and being open
minded and being willing to seewhat works.
Sophia Bouwens (40:18):
So I'm excited for our listeners to get to
learn a lot more, and for us toshare some of these exciting,
fascinating things with peoplewho might be suffering or
knowing loved ones who aresuffering from symptoms help
them understand them and recoverfrom them. Ayla, do you want to
talk about our affiliate puritycoffee and what we have to offer
(40:40):
for our listeners.
Unknown (40:42):
I do. I started buying purity coffee over two years
ago, and one of the reasons wasbecause, with all of my
concussions, I became verysensitive to mold, and I would
notice that there were timeswhen I would go to a coffee shop
and I'd order a cup of coffee,and as soon as I drank it, I
(41:04):
would feel so tired, and mybrain fog would just get, I
mean, off the charts bad. And soI'm like, Okay, what is going
on? Right? Why is it that I canhave coffee one day I feel fine.
The next day I have coffee, andI feel like someone just drugged
me. And so I started to do someresearch. It turns out coffee
beans are a huge source of moldtoxins if they're not dried
(41:26):
properly. And so when you havecoffee that hasn't been dried
correctly, hasn't been processedcorrectly, you can develop
mycotoxins in the coffee. And alot of coffee that is not
organic is also sprayed withpesticides. Pesticides also are
not good for your gut or yourgut brain axis. In my research,
(41:48):
I discovered that I needed tostart buying coffee that was
free of pesticides, free ofmold, and so I switched over to
purity coffee, because they areorganic. They are getting their
coffee beans sourced from peoplewho practice regenerative
farming practices, and so thesoil quality is good. They're
(42:09):
not spraying their beans withpesticides. They test for mold
to make sure there's no mold ormycotoxins in their coffee. And
as soon as I switched over, Inoticed that I don't feel tired,
I don't have brain fog, I don'tfeel jittery, I know that I'm
not dumping pesticides in mybody. And so I loved the fact
that I had gotten these littlesatchels the travel packs, and
(42:31):
they were just piling up at theoffice. And so one day, you text
me when you're at the clinic,and I think I was at home, and
you said, Can I try this coffee?
I
Sophia Bouwens (42:40):
didn't believe it. You've been talking about
this coffee forever. I was tiredthat day. I think I didn't have
coffee before I left the house,and I was like, I gotta just
take one of these satchels. Andit was the best coffee I've had.
I've had a lot of coffee. I've,like, even been in Guatemala
coffee bean picking and, oh,
Ayla Wolf (42:58):
I know we're both coffee snobs!
Sophia Bouwens (43:00):
and this coffee it, you can taste it, you can
smell it. You feel like, I feelclear when I drink it, not
jittery or like rushed. It'scoffee as it should be.
Ayla Wolf (43:11):
yeah, it, it tastes amazing. And so I've been
drinking for two years the Flowbrand, or like the flow flavor,
Sophia Bouwens (43:15):
I've done coffee enemas for liver health and
which I think is their originaland then just recently, they had
sent a free sample of somethingcalled Protect and it's a
different kind of blend of theircoffee. And so it's supposed to
help improve your liverfunction. And if you know me,
(43:35):
I'm constantly taking herbs formy liver. So when I was like, I
can drink coffee for my liver.
function. There's coffee can beused in all good. Coffee has so
many applications, but there'sinteresting discussion about
coffee and brain injuryrecovery, because some people
are more sensitive to it. Do youthink that the primary driver of
(43:57):
that could be some of themycotoxins in there?
Unknown (43:59):
Well, I mean, that was definitely my case. There's a
lot of research looking into theblood brain barrier. And after
people have a concussion orbrain injury, the blood brain
barrier opens up to allow foraspects of the peripheral immune
system to enter into the brainand help heal the brain. But if
that doesn't resolve after, youknow, an appropriate couple of
(44:22):
days to a couple of weeks,people can have chronic
leakiness of the blood brainbarrier, if that happens over
time, that can create a lot ofchronic neuro inflammation. And
they're looking at this kind of,quote, leaky blood brain barrier
as a mechanism that's involvedin other neurodegenerative
conditions as well. The reasonwe're talking about this is
(44:44):
because, if any of our listenerswould like to try a cleaner,
healthier coffee, you can go topurity coffee.com and enter
promo code life after 20 for 20%off your first order. I
Sophia Bouwens (44:59):
was glad you had in the office and I could try it
out. It was delicious.
Thanks for listening.
We'll be back with episode twoon post traumatic headache. You.
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