ENCINO, Calif., Sept. 30, 2009 — After more than 28 years in practice, Dr. Mark L. Gordon, a survivor himself of traumatic brain injury (TBI), has spent the last 14 years focusing in on the association between concussion (mild TBI) and the sequelae of hormonal dysfunction that leads to personality changes, decreased mental functioning, depression, and physical decay.
Having worked with professional boxers, mixed martial artists, retired football players, and motocross racers, who have all experienced significant traumatic brain injuries, he has found a consistency of hormonal deficiencies in the majority of them. Furthermore, these clinical findings are supported by thousands of medical studies showing this relationship.
Until now, the majority of these cases have been related to sports trauma or arising out of civilian lifestyles. With the growing number of veterans returning with complications of closed head trauma, Dr. Gordon feels a civil responsibility to provide an optional assessment looking at hormone deficiencies as the root cause of symptoms (Post-Concussion Syndrome).
Neurologists affiliated with the U.S. military now estimate that up to 30% of troops who have been on active duty for 4 months or longer (in both Iraq and Afghanistan) are at risk of some form of disabling neurological damage. This is partly based on the knowledge that closed head injuries far outnumber the penetrative head injuries on which official statistics are based. So, while official figures put the number of U.S. troop casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan at 22,600 (as of November 2006), there may be up to 150,000 already suffering from TBI.
Whether the trauma is mild, moderate, or severe it still can cause the brain's ability to regulate important life maintaining hormones to fail. The loss of these hormones increases the risk of heart attack, stroke, emotional instability, depression, anxiety, mood swings, memory loss, fatigue, confusion, amnesia, poor cognition, learning disabilities, decreased communication skills, poor healing, frequent infections, poor fracture healing, poor skin quality, increased body fat, decreased muscle strength and size, infertility, and loss of sex drive.
These findings are not new, and neither are the present treatments that still consist of psychotherapy with or without anti-depressants or other drugs that just mask the symptoms. This "stealth" condition can be detected with cost-effective and appropriate laboratory testing surveying an array of hormones and their markers. If there are hormonal deficiencies, treatment consists of returning them to a natural, physiological level.
In 2007, Drs. Dan Kelly and Mark Gordon provided the research and clinical aspects of hormonal dysfunction arising out of TBI on the program ESPN: Outside the Lines. A number of well-known sports personalities, each with documented TBI, discussed their experience before and after hormone replacement. In that same year, Dr. Gordon's book The Clinical Application of Interventional Endocrinology offered the medical documentation to support the causes, clinical findings, laboratory testing, specific hormone replacement strategies, and the outcomes for traumatic brain injury associated with hormonal dysfunction.
If you are one of the many veterans returning with what you think is the Stealth Syndrome, please log on to http://www.tbimedlegal.com. There are room and endowments for a limited number of new patients with the anticipation of additional funds from more supporters of this approach to traumatic brain injury. The consultation and laboratory fees are at no cost to patients or anyone for that matter.
For further information, please visit http://www.tbimedlegal.com.
Contact:
Dr. Mark L. Gordon
The Millennium Health Centers, Inc.
American Academy of Interventional Endocrinology(TM)
Email
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