Why Do I Still Have Symptoms Months After a Concussion?

CoTrauma After a Head Injury

The brain is brilliant at survival, which can make your recovery more difficult. 

A head injury can change everything. Your brain is smart - and adaptable. However, due to the nature of head injury or whiplash, your brain may stay locked into a protective response, long after the danger has passed, stalling your healing process. 

Imagine enduring a rock concert 24/7 under the loudest speaker - this is what it can feel like with a ricochet of symptoms after a concussion.

After a traumatic brain injury (TBI) or concussion, you may feel “fine” at first. But weeks,  months, or even years later, lingering symptoms often appear, such as:

• Brain fog and slowed thinking

• Headaches or migraines

• Word-finding difficulties

• Memory problems

• Dizziness, nausea, or balance issues

• Sensitivity to light and sound

• Mood Issues like Depression or Anxiety

These aren’t random side effects—they are likely the result of both physical injury and your intelligent nervous system creating negative adaptations (hello trauma). 

What Happens During a Head Injury?

The brain is like jello in a jar. It’s cushioned by cerebrospinal fluid, fascia, dura mater, and the skull. But during an impact, the brain can be impacted by the hard skull, or changes in fascial restriction and blood flow can occur. 

Even without loss of consciousness, this can set off a chain reaction:

1. Structural and Physical Stress

• Tissue constriction or shearing

• Reduced blood flow and oxygenation

• Strain in the neck, spine, and surrounding structures

2. Physiological Nervous System Response

• The brain prioritizes survival by slowing high-level processing.

• Chemical, emotional, and physical imprints are encoded in the nervous system.

• Even if you feel “okay,” your body may react as if the trauma is still happening. You are likely not even consciously aware of the impact chemically, physically and emotionally. This is where our body compensates with difficult symptoms that lock this history in our tissues.

This explains why many people develop ongoing sensory overload, fatigue, mood changes, or sleep problems long after the initial injury. Or why you aren’t responding to very helpful therapies.

Why Symptoms Persist

Trauma locks the nervous system into a contradictory state:

• One foot on the gas: hyperarousal, anxiety, irritability, poor sleep.

• One foot on the brake: brain fog, fatigue, poor recall, slowed processing.

You can’t drive with a parking brake! The Colorado Concussion Center can help. 

In addition to cognitive, physical and vision therapies, we provide a specific form of Neurofeedback technology called the LENS, which works to help the brain shift out of trauma patterning, and the results are often dramatic. 

LENS Therapy has shown rapid, even startling improvement (Larsen, 2006. The Healing Power of Neurofeedback)

How LENS Neurofeedback Helps

Your brain can repair itself. The Low Energy Neurofeedback System (LENS) offers a gentle way for your nervous system to downshift, so your brain can reset itself. 

“The LENS seems to increase cortical flexibility, decrease rigid and inflexible adaptations, and harmonize and balance the activity of the CNS” (Larsen, 2006).

• Tiny signal: Sensors measure brain activity and send back a signal offset from the brain’s own rhythm—1,000 x weaker than traditional neurofeedback.

• Breaks stuck patterns: This slight nudge bypasses protective filters and helps the brain reorganize, likely increasing blood flow, balancing brainwave function and boosting neuroplasticity.

• Encourages natural repair: Your brain isn’t forced to change in a specific way - with the LENS, your brain drives the feedback to change itself.
  

Research supports LENS as an effective therapy for symptoms of both TBI and trauma:

• Traumatic Brain Injury: LENS therapy has been shown to result in “reports of restored cognition, reduced headaches, and even recovery of smell after head trauma (Hammond, 2007, 2017).
  

• PTSD & Trauma: LENS reduces hyperarousal, improves sleep, and helps restore balance to emotional processing (Larsen, 2006). Most patients often describe feeling calmer, clearer, and less reactive.
  

Schedule a LENS Brain Mapping 

If you’re struggling with brain fog, dizziness, headaches, or mood changes after a head injury, it may not be the impact itself causing ongoing problems—but your nervous system’s protective response.

Even if you’ve tried everything - the LENS is different. Schedule your first LENS session at the Colorado Concussion Clinic. 

Your brain wants to heal. It’s time to let go of the brakes. 

CITATIONS

Larsen, S. (2006). The healing power of neurofeedback: The revolutionary LENS technique for restoring optimal brain function. Rochester, VT: Healing Arts Press.

Hammond, D. C. (2007, 2014). QEEG evaluation of LENS treatment of TBI. Journal of Neurotherapy, 14, 170-177.

How LENS Neurofeedback Works - A Novel Therapy for TBI and Head Injury Recovery

Living with Lingering Symptoms After a Head Injury

If you’ve experienced a concussion or head injury, you know recovery can feel frustratingly slow. Even months later, you might still struggle with:

• Poor cognitive function or brain fog

• Trouble thinking or concentrating

• Sensitivity to light, sound or movement

• Mood changes like anxiety, irritability or depression

• Anxiety, depression or irritability

• Chronic headaches, chronic pain or body tension

• Poor energy or sleep
  
  

For many patients, these symptoms can get worse over time after head injury and may not resolve even with rest, medication or therapy alone. 

That’s where LENS neurofeedback, a form of brainwave disentrainment can make a big difference.

What Is LENS Neurofeedback?

LENS (Low Energy Neurofeedback System) is a gentle, non-invasive brain training method. It works by sending a tiny, imperceptible radiowave signal through sensors placed on the scalp. The brain picks up on this signal, which is small enough to get underneath neuroprotective filters. This signal helps the brain outline and sense its own functioning, and the brain responds (the feedback) by releasing “stuck” and inefficient patterning created by injury or trauma. 

Think of Traumatic Brain Injury like a traffic jam in the brain: after an accident, your brain compensates by protecting and slowing down blood flow and neural pathways around the injury, causing symptoms such as reduced cognitive functioning, headaches and brain/body scrambling.

Slowing down in one part of the brain affects other areas, and eventually entire areas of ‘the city’ become less efficient. It takes more and more energy to function in your life and things that were once easy, become a chore. 

The LENS acts like traffic control, helping the brain sense these inefficiencies and access new resources (increased blood flow, neural signaling) to heal. 

Your own brain provides the feedback, as it traces the tiny signal from LENS and exercises out of stuck, inefficient pathways. 

How LENS Supports Concussion Recovery

1. Reduces Stress on the Body and the Brain – LENS is FDA cleared for Stress. The LENS calms overactive fight-or-flight responses, giving your brain and nervous system the support it needs to regulate and repair itself.
   

2. Restores Clarity – Patients often report clearer thinking, better focus, increased concentration and reduced brain fog.
   

3. Improves Sleep & Mood – By helping regulate the nervous system, LENS supports better sleep patterns and emotional balance.
   

4. Accelerates Progress in Therapy – When your brain is less stuck,it becomes receptive again to other treatments (cognitive, speech, vision, or physical therapy) often become more effective.

5. Releases NeuroMuscular Tension + Trauma Patterning - After an accident, the biggest challenge to the brain is the body. When the brain senses motor trauma, or neuromuscular patterns of gripping in response to an accident, functioning slows. The LENS can also be used on the body to release muscle tension, directly influencing the nervous system to repair neuromuscular or structural issues, recover from panic, anxiety or PTSD and reduce chronic pain signaling. 

What to Expect in a Session

• Small sensors are placed on the scalp and ears.

• The system measures brainwave activity and sends back a signal slightly offset from what it reads.

• Sessions are very brief — often just a few minutes of stimulation.

• Entirely Passive! Patients don’t need to “do” anything — your brain does the work.

Most people find the process relaxing, and depending on sensitivity, patients experience gradual or faster changes in mood, energy and cognition as the nervous system reorganizes. 

For 24-48 hours after a session, patients might experience responses based on nervous system changes such as: changes in energy, sleep, brief echoes of past symptoms, increased dreaming, or in the case of trauma - the release of memories without much emotional content. 

Is LENS Right for Post-Concussion Symptoms?

If you’re still experiencing headaches, brain fog, cognitive slowing, mood swings, or sensitivity after a concussion, LENS may help. 

Talk to your doctor and wait at least 2-4 weeks after a major concussion to give your brain time to rebalance, and then try a LENS session. It’s especially supportive when nothing else has worked, or for people who feel stuck in recovery. The LENS can even be helpful for people who are too sensitive to tolerate more stimulating therapies.

Citations: 

Hammond, 2007 (Anosmia). Case reversal of anosmia post-head injury with LENS.

Hammond, 2010 (QEEG TBI case). Quantitative EEG improvement post-LENS.

ISNR Journal 2006 issues. Multiple TBI-related LENS case series.

Larsen, 2009. Theoretical fit of LENS for TBI.

Nelson & Esty, 2012. Veterans with TBI/PTSD – symptom reduction.

Nelson & Esty, 2015. Chronic TBI-related headaches improved with FNS.

Schoenberger et al., 2001. Early randomized trial—FNS in mild to moderate TBI.

St. Clair, 2008. TBI from AVM – LENS application report.