Video Transcript:
Today we're going to talk about tinted eyewear for TBI and concussions. TBI and concussions are a significant issue, and I think that as time goes on, we realize how much we've neglected it in healthcare. While we understand quite a bit about the brain, it's still pretty remarkable.
You've got this 3-pound organ in your skull that literally controls everything about your body. It's controlling your heartbeat, it's controlling your breathing, not to mention all of your thoughts, right? Everything that's going on is controlled by your brain.
When we say concussion, we mean your brain got hurt somewhere; and we haven't spent a whole lot of energy really digging into how that affects you. Well, we have in a way, but we haven't necessarily—like if I get hit in the front of the head, what's my recovery going to be like compared to getting hit in the back or the side?
We don't really know all that much beyond, "Hey, you have a concussion." Because we don't necessarily understand the scope of injury, what we're doing is kind of relying on the brain to heal itself the best way that it knows how. And we want the brain to have as much energy as possible to dedicate to the healing.
That's where tinted eyewear and different solutions for concussion and TBI come in: what can we do to keep you somewhat functional while reducing your visual input in a meaningful way?
What I have here is a bunch of tints that ultimately make up a product that we sell—that's a TBI kit for traumatic brain injury and that sort of thing. What that includes are some different colors that anecdotally have shown to be quite useful for patients with concussion and TBI. One of those is a color called F40, another is plum and another is blue.
If I had to line up a set of patients and guess which color they would respond positively to, I'd be better off buying lottery tickets because it's really hard. Your brain is your brain. Your injury is your injury. But we have noticed that these colors have been useful for many patients with those kinds of injuries. So post-concussion, the visual symptoms—it's going to be hard to diagnose.
As I was saying, your brain is dedicating as much energy as it can spare to recovery - to fixing itself. In doing so, it's going to shut down systems that it considers non-essential. So what you might feel is your brain saying, "Hey, shut down." That might feel like a headache, that might feel like double vision, that might feel like just being really, really exhausted. Ultimately, the way that the symptoms manifest are going to be different, but the kind of underlying thing is the same: it's your body saying, "Hey, my battery's dead and I need to replenish." Anything that you can do to stay functional while your body is replenishing is going to be useful.
The tints, a lot of times, reduce visual input in a meaningful way. One of the things that's interesting is two-thirds of the information in your brain got there through your eyes. When we put a tinted pair of lenses in front of your eyes, two-thirds of the information going into your brain is running through that filter. If that filter is something that your brain responds nicely to, why not wear it? If you can still go to work and go to school and do anything because you're wearing this tint, and whatever visual input is reduced helps you stay strong and energetic, then hey, sounds like a win to me.
So that is why tinted eyewear is potentially helpful for your concussions, but there is no kind of one-size-fits-all approach. I would encourage you to try multiple things. You know, pills and surgeries and just staying in a dark room aren't always the most practical solution. If you can put on a pair of glasses and have that get you where you need to go, well, that's way less of a burden in your life.
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Disclaimer: The information provided in this video is for educational purposes only and is based on our experience in optical solutions. We are not medical doctors. Consult with your ophthalmologist, neurologist, or other qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your treatment plan. The solutions discussed are intended to support, not replace, professional medical advice.