Concussion Recovery with Elite Speed Skater Dr. Danielle Fleming | E9

Join us for a powerful conversation on the often-overlooked aspects of concussion recovery. Dr. Danielle Fleming shares her experiences navigating the athletic world while dealing with the long-term impacts of brain injuries. 

- Discussing how athletes often ignore symptoms 
- The emotional toll of balancing identity and health 
- Techniques that helped in recovery from concussions 
- Dr. Fleming's current work as a chiropractor, helping people with concussions, mold, and parasites.
- The importance of finding specialized care 
- Broadening awareness about brain health for athletes 

Follow Dr. Fleming on Instagram @drdanielle.dc

Dr. Fleming's clinic is Vibrant Life Center Chiropractic located in Oakdale MN https://www.vibrantlifecenter.com/

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to the Episode
• 5:10 Concussions as an Athlete
• 12:30 Early Experiences with Speed Skating
• 26:03 The Importance of Brain Health
• 1:11:03 The Journey from Injury to Recovery
• 1:41:03 Understanding Your Symptoms

Transcript

Ayla Wolf: 0:00

So the fear of it being an all or nothing situation, kept you from getting help

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 0:05

It truly did, I mean, it just feels like your world is crumbling if you can't be this athlete you dreamed of being. I don't know there was this big like, who are you? And what are you gonna do? And you know, when you're 18, that's everything, versus like, Okay, let's take care of your brain health first long term - it's obviously 10 times more important than any athletic achievements.

Sophia Bouwens: 0:25

Welcome to the life after impact podcast where we do a deep dive into all things concussion and brain injury related. We talk about all the different symptoms that can follow brain injury, different testing methods, different types of specialists out there and different therapies available. I'm Sophia Bowens. I'm here with Dr Ayla Wolf, and we will be your guide to living your best life after impact.

Ayla Wolf: 0:56

Welcome to the life after impact podcast, where our episode today is an interview with Dr Danielle Fleming, who was an elite speed skater and cyclist and had a history of at least one concussion, but perhaps a few undocumented concussions as well. And so I wanted to dive into your history with concussions as an elite athlete, how that impacted you in your life, and also your perspective on - once you started to heal your brain, being able to look back and see some of these symptoms that you had at the time that you were, in a sense, unaware of, or maybe not really connecting the dots. We both had a similar history in that way. So I'd love to get your perspective on what your experience was like. And I think it's always helpful for other people to hear those types of experiences, to say that, hey, you're not alone. Many of us have kind of been through this and experienced it. So welcome to the show.

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 1:52

Yes. Thank you for having me so excited to be here and talk with you and share my story a little bit, hopefully help other people you know, recognize any struggles they might be having, and just some stuff they can do to help.

Ayla Wolf: 2:02

Absolutely and so when, how old were you when you first started speed skating? Because that's not a super common sport, how'd you get into that?

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 2:10

Right? So I was nine years old. I am a chiropractor. My dad is also a chiropractor, and I have an older brother who wanted to play hockey. So of course, with a chiropractor dad, he was like, absolutely not. He see those spines come in, and they're just not usually great. So we live in Minnesota, we happen to have a nice 400 meter oval in Roseville. So they said, you know, why don't you go speed skate? So my brother started skating, and I just happened to be at all the practices, obviously. And so then I started, and quite frankly, I was awful, like, literally the slowest person on the ice. So bad. But I just loved it for some reason. And then the 2002 Olympics came around, and I was like, yes, that's who I want to I want to be an Olympic medalist. And off starts my journey in speed skating.

Ayla Wolf: 2:55

Awesome, I love that. I've I shared a story once with how I was, trying to train for a marathon, and I got beat by a speed walker. So I know what that feels like, and I think that's just such a true testament to like, when you love something, it doesn't even matter if you're good at it, right? It's like, we just want to do it. And then the, you know, the greatness comes later, right?

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 3:15

Luckily, yes.

Ayla Wolf: 3:18

And then you also were a cyclist too?

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 3:19

Yeah, as I progressed in speed skating in the summer, we obviously don't have ice in Minnesota, our ice rink is outside, so it melts. And we inline on, we inline skate, which is basically rollerblading on five or four wheels instead of, like the little tiny ones, they're really big. And then, in addition to that, we also cycled in the summer. So I got involved with that. Honestly, never really super loved it, but I loved my cycling team, and they were kind of what kept me going. So I did nationals a few times, had a couple top 10 finishes, nothing super crazy. Went to Canada once for a race up there, but primarily focused on speed skating. Was much better at that. But I'm sure a lot of my initial concussions probably came from crashing on a bike, given that it's a lot harder impact that whole like, 30 miles per hour to zero, very abruptly, yeah, versus sliding on the ice.

Ayla Wolf: 4:10

Eandom question, when I've watched speed skaters in the Olympics, they have massive quads. So between cycling and speed skating, did you have huge quads?

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 4:19

You know, you get that a lot. Like, speed skaters have, like, the big butts, the big legs. I was like, the very small speed skater. You'll see me, like, in a picture, lined up with all the other girls for a mass start. I guess, I should also differentiate there's short-track speed skate and the hockey rink with the helmets, like the really cool one where they're touching the ice, Apollo Ono. I did the boring one on the big oval with the hoods. Which were kind of silly looking, but we do races. We're all lined up together. We all go at the same time as well. And all the girls are like, 5'8" - 5'10". And, like, their legs are bigger than mine. And I'm like, 5'5" and like, relatively small for a speed skater. But then, when I hang out with non speed skaters, I'm like, wow, my legs are still massive, so it's funny. And then, relatively speaking, now that I'm not skating, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm so little now.

Ayla Wolf: 5:06

And so you mentioned that you had a couple of bad bicycling or cycling crashes, and, like, it sounds like nothing that you didn't walk away from, in the sense that you kind of were, like, I maybe had a concussion, maybe not?

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 5:18

Yeah, nothing. Um, that was immediate. Like, wow, my head hurts. I mean, I definitely hit my head on the ground a few times. I actually got hit by a car once, and broke a bunch of bones. And, I was really young at the time, and apparently there was... I hit by the front wheel, well, like, such a miracle that I didn't get sucked under a wheel or something. But apparently my helmet paint was on the hood of the car, but I had a bunch of broken bones at the time, so concussion things were such a side thing at this point. Yeah, I don't know I don't remember any, like, immediate concussion stuff from that, ironically.

Ayla Wolf: 5:53

But it sounds like it's could have been enough sub-concussive impacts that when you did get a concussion, the history of all these other injuries might have contributed,

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 6:04

yeah, yeah, because I would say the tipping point crashed for me. I didn't even hit my head. I just had whiplash that happened, versus, like, all the other ones where I, like, knowingly bonked my head on something, and, you know, walked away relatively fine.

Ayla Wolf: 6:18

And then, what year was that concussion?

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 6:20

Probably, like, 2010, 2009 right around there somewhere.

Ayla Wolf: 6:27

And then with that one, describe your journey of dealing with the symptoms. I know a lot of athletes, they don't want to get pulled out of their sport, and so they try to minimize things. They try to just deal with their symptoms and keep going. What was your experience?

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 6:43

I was actually in Utah at the time. I was training in Milwaukee, but was out there for a race, and I was warming up, and I had tripped over my feet in the corner. And you have enough time before you hit the pads to rearrange yourself to land correctly, so you don't go feet first into the pads and break a leg or ankle or something. So I actually hit with my head facing forward, around the turn of my legs facing backwards, so you're hitting sideways, and the pads go up at the bottom and then angle for the rest of the way up. So kind of like a triangle with like a perpendicular base, I guess. And so my hips got up and over that little ledge, and I ended up flipping the other direction, so my legs came up and over me, and my legs were facing forward, and my head was now backwards, and so just that, like flipping motion must have given me enough whiplash, and immediately, like, I had a headache, which is, you know, pretty common after a crash. So to me, it wasn't overly alarming. I raced, like, 30 minutes later because I had to get this qualifying time. And then I just had an ongoing headache for a few days. But I was in Utah, I was thinking, you know, I'll go back to Milwaukee in a few days. I'll see my chiropractor. I'll start feeling better. No big deal. So then a couple weeks go by, my headaches had gone away at that point, but I would be at practice, and we leave our water bottles on the ice. So I would pick up my water bottle from the ice, and I'd, I'd come up to standing, I'd be really light headed. I'd be seeing spots for a few seconds, and then it would kind of like, go away. And initially, I kind of mentioned it a little bit to my coach, because he kind of looked at me funny. And I'd be like, oh, you know, I think I'm still just recovering from my crash. No big deal. But it kept going on and on. Eventually they got a little bit more spread out. So I kind of just ignored it. Didn't really say anything. You know, the goal was - make a Junior World Cup team, go to the Olympics, all this stuff. So my fear was, if I, if I told my coach that I was going to be benched for the season. You know, as they as you do, when you have a concussion, you have to go sit in a dark room and do all these things. So I kind of kept ignoring that and that that probably happened in October of 2009 ish, whatever year it was. And then that following summer, things kept getting worse and worse, and in the summer, we go back to cycling for training. So I have Oakleys that I wear, and they're super tight to my head, one because, like when we're speed skating, you want them to stay on. You don't want to be fidgeting with anything. You don't really have time to spare. And then in cycling, you know, you're hitting potholes and he or like people are bumping into you. So you need something super secure, so they hug your head really tight. And by the end of that summer, in 2010 I wasn't really able to wear my glasses anymore when I was biking, then when we started skating again, because I just, I would get so lightheaded and dizzy from it that I was taking them off after a few minutes, and then just stopped wearing them all together. And that was kind of the big thing was just feeling dizzy and just ignoring it for so long, just because I was like, well, we got, we got World Cup trials coming up. I can't take time off, so just do whatever it takes. Yeah, just kind of kept pushing through, as athletes do so and then what happened? Yeah, so the next winter comes around, and I actually was having a really bad skating season. Like, things were not going well. I wasn't feeling good. I was racing poorly. I'd be at practice and in races, and normally I'm I'm super driven, super focused. Okay, here's how we're going. Enter this corner, we need to pick up the pace. We need to make sure we're doing this with our technique. Like, always something going on. And when I'd be in practice or racing, my mindset had shifted to, oh, you know, we're just we're feeling kind of tired, we can kind of take it easy and and it was weird because I could recognize myself saying those things internally, and I would try to acknowledge and say "No, we can't do that". But it was like this, I'd hit this wall and this block of "No, we're just gonna take take it easy". And it was the most bizarre thing, and it's so hard for me to explain, but I just felt like I was powerless to this internal monolog, even though I could acknowledge it. So fast forward, have really bad World Cup trials, whatever. And I was going to Minnesota, coming back to Minnesota, I guess, for a race. And I told my mom and dad that I think I have a concussion, I'm having problems. And I went to a functional neurologist chiropractor here, and he he does more brain rehab than more traditional chiropractic. So I laid on his adjusting table for about 1.3 seconds, and he's immediately like, something is wrong with your eyes. yes, this is a concussion. And he started doing eye rehab for me and vision training and gaze training, and I would literally be there for five minutes, and I would go home, and I'd go to bed for four hours, wake up, eat dinner, go back to bed the rest of the night, and, yeah, just going there a couple times a week. And the turnaround I saw was so fast and so crazy. I was training through it still, I didn't have to take any time off. And, you know, I came home a little bit early because we had winter break from college, so I was like, well, I'll just, I'll get used to outdoor ice again and train here and be ready for the race here. And, you know, at that point, you know, I had been saying, let's take it easy. Let's do whatever. And I had gone to see this chiropractor probably five times. And, you know, a couple days before this race started, I said, you know, I think I want to win this race this weekend. I think I can do that, which was such a foreign concept at that time, I hadn't said anything like that in well over a year, probably, and then I ended up winning, which is also kind of crazy, because that was so far off my radar at that point, too. So awesome, yeah, just a crazy turnaround,

Ayla Wolf: 12:12

I think you touched on a really important point there, which is that I think a lot of patients, when they're given something like an eye exercise, they might feel like, Oh, this is just a little, tiny, easy, simple eye exercise, but like you said, you would need to go home and sleep for five hours after a five minute rehab session. And I think that is, you know, I think a lot of people have a hard time recognizing that when you start to get into certain pathways that really need help, you're asking the brain to start healing, and that takes a lot of energy, and then people might need more sleep or more rest in that process. And so many people, when they come to me, they're like, you know, I did these eye exercises and then I felt really tired. Yeah, it's, you know, it's that idea of - we all have a certain metabolic capacity to do work, and that that some of these eye exercises really take up a lot of energy. Yeah, they're they might look simple, they might look easy, but they're actually very taxing to the system. When you have an injured brain, right? And it doesn't take too much to kind of throw someone over the edge or get them to that point where they're like, oh, I need to, I need to rest now. Right time for a nap, for sure, but also interesting that you started to have just a completely different internal dialog too.

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 13:25

Yeah, and so quickly too, that I think that was, like, the most shocking part for me. It was like, okay, like, maybe I'll feel better, whatever in the sessions were so fast, and I think I must have been going three or four times a week, and to see that turn around that quickly, I mean, looking back, like, if I had known about this, and like, frankly, even just acknowledge the position I was in, instead of kind of shoving my symptoms and where I was at under the rug, like I could have, I could have come to him or someone who does something similar, sooner felt better, sooner raced better, sooner trained better, sooner and like, I didn't even have to take time off from practice. He was still encouraging me to to go train and like, maybe take it a little bit easier for one of my sessions, because we were had two practices a day. But, I mean, the adjustment was so minimal, and I think that for me was such a big barrier early on, is like, I'm not gonna be able to practice. And like, how do you reach your athletic goals if you're not at practice getting better?

Ayla Wolf: 14:20

Yeah, so the fear of it being an all or nothing situation kept you from getting help.

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 14:25

It truly did, I mean, it just feels like your world is crumbling if you can't be this athlete you dreamed of being. I don't know there was this big like, who are you? And what are you gonna do? And you know, when you're 18, that's everything, versus Okay, let's take care of your brain health. First long term, it's obviously 10 times more important than any athletic achievement.

Ayla Wolf: 15:50

I think a lot of athletes end up in a situation where their entire identity is wrapped around their profession, as, you know, as an athlete. And I definitely saw that with a lot of the MMA fighters that I worked with, and, you know, with even some. Of these UFC fighters, the truth is, is, if they only have two or three fights a year, they're actually not making that much money. And so it's like they're, not only is their identity tied to it, but their whole financial and, you know, financial world is tied to, you know, showing up for a fight, yeah. And so in those situations, you know, a lot of times it's like they will do anything to just keep training,

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 16:24

right? You're kind of between the rock and a hard place, you know? And, I mean, my whole identity was wrapped up in being Danielle, the speed skater. So, like, I mean, and my income didn't even rely on it, so I can't imagine, you know, if income was tied to it, like you'd really be in a position.

Ayla Wolf: 16:38

Yeah, I think a lot of athletes do find themselves in these really difficult positions dealing with concussion symptoms and not quite knowing what to do about it, or, and especially if they are, you know, to the degree that yours were where you felt like you could still push through it, in the sense of, like, Oh, it's just a little bit of dizziness when I bend over to pick up my water bottle, or, I know, it's a little bit of light sensitivity or difficulty with my glasses. You know, I think that when the symptoms are kind of in the sense, you know, mild or easily passed off as potentially being caused by something else or just something that you can ignore, then that just, you know, set people up for the exact same scenario where you just try to push through it,

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 17:17

yeah, yeah. Because that's where I was, like, one of the point of it had, like, interfered with my life so much. It was like, Okay, now, now I need help. And I know so many people who end up in those situations too, I think we're all guilty of it at one point or another. You know? Yeah, that was the tipping point for me. Is like, Okay, now I'm like, I'm not skating well, not performing well, and I can't wear my my stinking glasses at practice. So we can't spend all this money on Oakleys and not wear them.

Ayla Wolf: 17:43

Yeah? So once your brain started to heal, it was easier for you to look back, kind of in hindsight and say, oh, there was a lot of things going on that weren't normal, yeah, kind of normalizing or just kind of ignoring,

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 17:56

yeah. I mean, initially I thought it was just dizziness, and as my brain started to heal, I realized, you know, not only was I mentally not able to focus, but physically, my eyes weren't focusing. I would look at people for two or three seconds, and it felt like, you know when you had zoned out and you're kind of just staring off into space. But it would happen so quickly for me, and I didn't, I didn't even know it was happening until I was actively looking away less, I suppose, because I would, I'd have to look to the side of someone's head every two or three seconds, just so I had that motion to refocus on someone's face. So apparently when I was only doing it every six seconds, instead of every two or three seconds, was when I was like, wow, this is not good. And I found myself apologizing to people when I noticed it was happening. I was like, It's not that I'm not paying attention. It's just that I truly, my eyes are being retrained at this point, and they're getting stronger, but I'm still healing.

Ayla Wolf: 18:47

Did your family members notice a change in you?

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 18:50

They noticed a lot of the personality pieces come back around skating, and that I was more motivated and more focused again. But I was living in Milwaukee at that point, and my parents were here, so I don't know if they would have noticed, like, the eye looking away, or energy level changes or something.

Ayla Wolf: 19:07

They weren't seeing you day to day, y

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 19:08

eah, but they did notice the personality changes like that was definitely pointed out to me.

Ayla Wolf: 19:12

So you were definitely in in the fog of concussion for a while there.

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 19:16

Yeah, we were having a good time.

Ayla Wolf: 19:19

You had your professional athletic career, and then you decided to go to chiropractic school. And then are you also currently incorporating some of this experience and work into your practice too, in terms of the neuro rehab and working people with concussions?

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 19:36

yeah, when I see people come in with these things there, there's a lot of like overlap between concussion and focus problems for people like you don't necessarily have to hit your head, but I kind of do the same things for the same things for people if they're feeling dizzy or attention span is lacking or they do have a concussion, I do a little bedside optokinetic therapy, which is what I had done to me for more mild cases. I do work with that and help people with gaze stability or their specific adjustments. You can do that help stimulate certain parts of the brain, to help bring those back online, or, you know, dull down another side that might be overactive, just different things you can do.

Ayla Wolf: 20:14

So essentially, no matter kind of what the diagnosis is, when somebody is coming in, you're not just adjusting their spine, but you're also saying, How can I optimize this person's brain, and what is it that they're needing to create better optimization?

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 20:27

Yeah, and like, there are truly so many dizziness cases that come in, where, where the problems are in the neck, so much of our nerves in our brain, they stem down to the middle of our neck. So if you're having eye problems and focus problems, there's a good chance you're also having neck problems. So I do adjust the neck pretty regularly. There are different techniques I use. So, you know, some people, they don't need as much input, or shouldn't necessarily have as much input. If they're already kind of a little over stimulated, I'll take a different approach, but it accomplishes all the same things. So on top of that, if that helps them, that's wonderful. We'll kind of like hang out there. But if they're looking like they need more support than like, Okay, well, let's check out your eyes. Are there? You know, certain arm adjustments I can do that are going to help bring parts of your brain online. If got hit with a sock ball on like the left side of your head, or something like that,

Ayla Wolf: 21:16

So, you bring up a very good point. And I think, because I am an acupuncturist, people might be a little bit more upfront to me with how they feel about chiropractic. And so the thing that I hear time and time again from patients is they're terrified to go to a chiropractor, because I think they're going to grab their head and yank it to the side all of a sudden, and it's going to be a big, loud crack. And so I get to hear people's fears all the time. So I think they're more comfortable kind of saying to me their fear of why they're terrified of chiropractic, and so I think you explained it really well in the sense of like you're approaching every single person differently. Some people don't need a high velocity adjustment. They might need a very gentle input, and that's all it takes. So maybe speak to that for the people who are sitting here thinking like, I don't want to go to a chiropractor. I'm terrified of them cranking my head and, you know, jerking it suddenly, yeah, obviously, when you've got people who have whiplash, neck injuries, concussions, you know, maybe speak to those fears that people have, because there are so many different techniques out there.

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 22:17

Yeah. I mean, even as a chiropractor, I'll hear people come in and say, like, oh, I don't want my neck cracked like that. Every time I hear them say, like, crack your neck, I cringe a little bit because I'm like, Ah, we're adjusting it. We're not cracking anything. But, yeah, I can understand why people It makes people nervous, right? It's your neck, it's your head, it's your spine. It's so So really tailoring your treatments to meeting people important. So one thing I do for virtually every patient that comes in is I'm going to X ray them. One it allows me to be specific with someone's care. It tells me where exactly I can adjust places I shouldn't be adjusting. Really does keep it, you know. It takes it to that extra level of safety that other people might not be doing in a traditional chiropractic office, and it allows me to optimize care and speed up results for people there. There is, you know, your traditional chiropractor adjustment people are familiar with where you adjust the neck, and you get a lot of big noises. Sometimes it's not this huge thrust that everybody thinks it is. It's mostly just speed, and that's why you get those noises. A lot of people don't actually make noises when they adjust either. It's truly just gasses leaving the joints. The same thing as when you crack your knuckles. And I say, crack your knuckles, not adjust them. So I do that intentionally. But there are, there are people who will come in and say, like they're uncomfortable with that, or they don't like that, or maybe they have certain things show up on X ray that say, we can't adjust you like that. So we have different tools we can use. There's activators, which are the clicky things that everybody kind of talks about, the little metal things, and they just make a little pop. Make a little poppy noise. They accomplish the exact same thing, a traditional hand adjustment dies. It's usually less intimidating for people. Kiddos love it. Just a different approach. I usually throw in a little craniosacral with where they're at, which is obviously what everybody should work for some people too, especially if they're they have some dizziness or anxiety or stress, it helps them go back into that Rest Digest, get them out of that fight, flight. And people often come to me and tell me, I'm the gentle chiropractor. That's my most interesting feedback. be doing.

Unknown: 24:19

All the techniques work like, that's the cool thing about chiropractic. You know, you have Gonsted doctors. You have biophysics, which is what I do, more traditional, I don't know, just like, more standard care that people would see, like on YouTube, that is more recognizable, I guess.

Ayla Wolf: 24:34

I mean, I started doing chiropractic when I was 13, because I was playing volleyball at the time year round, and I was having knee pain. And when I went into the chiropractor, and I believe he actually, at one point, was the chiropractor for the Vikings and then he started his own private practice, and so I went to see him, and he immediately, you know, had me walk down the hall, and he said, You're pigeon toed, like, I mean, really badly. I had never noticed that I walked with my I think it was my right foot that was pigeon toed. And so through the chiropractic care, he completely got rid of that. I started walking normally. My knee pain went away, and then I'd gotten my first concussion. I think when I was 18, I was at a karate tournament. I got kicked in the head by a woman who had a huge thigh. She was probably a speed skater because, I mean, this woman's leg was massive. I don't even know how she got her leg that high, and all I know is that I got kicked in the head, and the next thing, I was on the ground with dizziness, disorientation and nausea. And nobody noticed, nobody picked up on it. And so I kind of like, got up off the ground, and I felt super out of it, and they're like, Hey, she won. You're go away. You're done.

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 25:49

Leave the mat please!

Ayla Wolf: 25:49

Leave the mat please! And yeah, so there was, like, nothing, no awareness of what had just happened. But I, I knew, I was like, Oh, and this was on, I think, a Friday night, and so my number one agenda was- I need to get to my chiropractor first thing Monday morning. I did get adjusted immediately, and I think that was why I probably didn't have a huge sequela of symptoms, yeah, and because I don't remember having symptoms other than just kind of that immediate sense of being nauseous and disoriented and kind of out of it. And obviously that was a long time ago. I was 18, but I do remember like, no in that moment, being like, I need to go see my chiropractor. Because right now I feel like my c1 is not in the

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 26:33

Yeah, yeah, and that's the same for me right spot anymore. as I think that's what floated me for so long, is I was seeing a chiropractor, or at least twice a week throughout my athletic career, just to give me that boost, give me that edge. And I think that saved me from so many symptoms that, I mean, I kept me functional. It kept me healthy, kept me working. It was just this eye thing that kept hanging around and I didn't even know I had, I mean, nobody knew I had it, because it's such like a relatively new thing that, I mean, I guess I was, you know, 10 ish years ago. So, I mean, definitely back then, people were not talking about it.

Ayla Wolf: 27:10

And I think that, you know, in the last 5 to 10 years, there has been a huge increase in the awareness of concussions and the importance of spotting them and removing people from a game, or whatever their their athletic endeavor is, but I think that then the problem is we recognize that, you know, the research says maybe 80% of people go on to recover on their own within a time frame of two weeks to four weeks, right? The problem is all those people who don't recover on their own, right? And then it's like, what do we do with them? Right? And so I think those are a lot of the people that tend to fall through the cracks, because they're not just recovering on their own. And if they've never heard of functional neurology, or they don't come across people that are able to do a comprehensive exam and look at, you know, how's your autonomic nervous system functioning, and what's going on with your ocular motor system? What are your eyes doing? Yeah, you didn't even know that you had different ocular motor issues, and your brain was constantly compensating for the ocular motor stuff, which was then creating more fatigue and, kind of affecting cognitive functions, but you weren't able to even know that until someone else came in and saw that.

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 28:23

I always tell people, if, like, they're not really getting results - what's being missed?

Ayla Wolf: 28:27

And I think it's really important too that no matter who someone's working with, whether we're talking about an optometrist or a physical therapist or a chiropractor or an acupuncturist or a medical doctor, because brain injuries are so complex, I really do think that it's important for people to be able to find somebody who specializes in that, because it needs to be additional training that anybody in any profession if they're going to work with people with concussions, and especially people with persistent post concussion symptoms that aren't getting better on their own, you've got to be able to work with somebody who has done additional training in their field of expertise, specifically on brain injuries, just because of the complexity of it?

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 29:06

Oh, absolutely. The brain is a whole beast on its own. It's so much work and it's so complex.

Ayla Wolf: 29:13

And then I know that, after you recovered from your injuries, you went to school, you became a chiropractor, and then you had an exposure to mold, and that was also kind of a big life event that caused some symptoms, and so that's also now on your radar as far as a lot of the patients you work with. And so that's another area that you specialize in. So tell me a little bit about that.

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 29:35

Yeah, so I actually got sick with mold prior to going to chiropractic school in April 2020, I got super sick. I thought for sure it was COVID, like I had chest pain, trouble, breathing winded, walking down the stairs, like my heart rate was, like 130 beats per minute, walking around the block, you know, headaches, fever, COVID, things, right? So two weeks goes by, I kind of get better, like 70% better, I'd say, and then it got worse again. So I ended up getting some blood work done. Everything came back normal, you know, within normal ranges. So I was like, Okay, interesting. So something's being missed from traditional blood work must be something environmental. And at this point, we had found mold on the windowsill in the apartment we were living in at that time. So I was like, I wonder if this is part of it? So I went and actually stayed with one of my girlfriends for a few days just to see what would happen. And I started to feel better. And I was like, okay, cool, maybe I'm just feeling better. And then I went back to our apartment, and then started to feel worse again. And it was in that moment that I was like, hey, something this is definitely environmental, so we kind of just blamed it on the mold. I didn't actually do any specific mold testing in the apartment or for myself. We were in Colorado at the time. So we were leaving to come back to Minnesota, actually, in about six weeks from that point. So I was like, we'll get out of this environment. I'll heal. It'll be fine. No big deal. It hasn't been going on that long. So we get back here and things cleared up a little bit, right? We got rid of like pillows and blankets and the beds and like all the porous structure, things that carry mold spores and. And it did improve a little bit, but I kind of reached this, like, plateau of healing, and things weren't really getting better. And that was probably like, June, July of 2020, after getting sick in April, and I'd actually gone to my functional neurology doctor again, because I started to kind of have some concussion symptoms again, which wasn't abnormal for me. I had moved to Colorado, I've been snowboarding. Of course, I'm gonna tumble down the hill at some point. So I had gone in for regular visits since, you know, getting concussions, and this is probably September at this point. And I, you know, am on the adjusting table for two and a half seconds again as it goes. And he's like, What did you do to your diaphragm, which is right underneath your lungs and helps you with breathing. And I'm sitting there like, if I'd hit my steering wheel, surely I would remember, or going over the handlebars on my bike or something. And I'm like, "Oh well, you know, nothing", but, I got sick from mold and blah, blah, blah, and kind of just waved it off. And he's like, "Oh my gosh, this is mold". So he starts helping me with detox, doing some different abdominal work and visceral stuff in addition to the functional neurology he was doing for me, and so then I started going down the mold rabbit hole, and that was a whole experience in itself. So ended up pretty sick for a pretty long time.

Ayla Wolf: 32:19

I know initially you said you had had a fever and almost more of like COVID flu like symptoms. So what were the more chronic symptoms of that?

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 32:26

Honestly, like the respiratory issues were so ongoing, I would go to the gym and be winded pretty quickly, like I just kept hanging out in my lungs or on my lungs or something like that, and justlingered. I didn't really have the more traditional sinus or congestion issues people hear of, or like the achy joints, wasn't really a thing. But when I started detoxing, I, you know, I was still having some respiratory stuff go on, for sure. But then I had a lot of anxiety, come on. I struggled a lot with really bad depression while I was detoxing. And when I had talked to my doctor about it, he said, you know, mold is a little bit different for everybody, because it's going to go to where go to where it's weaker in your body. And so having a history with concussions, and I had broken a bunch of my ribs from cycling and had some respiratory problems when I was a kiddo. I'm thinking this is why I have respiratory problems, and this is why it loves my brain, unfortunately. So, yeah, I was, it was a rough detox,

Ayla Wolf: 33:25

For sure, but you got through it and felt different on the other end.

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 33:28

Yeah. I took some time. So, I started detoxing, I guess, in like September of 2020 and probably felt like decently myself again in like June of 21 like April 21 right around there, and like today, you know, if, if there's forest fires up in Canada or something in the air here, it gets kind of bad. My my respiratory system, it kind of reacts that, like, Wheezy feeling, yeah, I kind of get this fuller feeling in my chest. And it's not like before when it would happen, when I was in the thick of detox, and that initial year or two after, it would happen so quick and so dramatically, and now it's a little bit like, okay, the air level can get a little bit worse before my body starts to notice.

Ayla Wolf: 34:10

So your resilience is a little bit better now, but you still are aware, and you have those, like, yellow flags of, hey, yeah, I've gotten a little bit of some symptoms time to maybe do X, Y and Z to combat it. Yeah, there's a saying that you are in the best position to help the person you once were. And I think that's so true. And obviously it sounds like with you too. Your experience with both mold and the concussions gives you that perspective, that when you've got people that walk in your door at the clinic, you can kind of spot these things.

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 34:43

yeah, I find myself, like, pulling out mold and parasites and people so quickly. I'm like, Are you sure it's not this? And you know, the unfortunate or fortunate way, like, however you want to look at it, it's like, the way I went about my mold detox. Looking back, there are so many things I could have and should have done differently that would have made my detox about 3000 times easier. I mean, I got through it right? It's all okay. It just probably would have been less awful. And the beauty of that is now, if somebody comes in and they're trying to detox mold or parasites, I can emphasize like, these steps to prepare your body for detox are going to be absolutely crucial, and you're not feeling like the garbage pile that I felt like, and hopefully you speed it up, because, you know, people will detox, and if you're not actively getting those toxins out, well now they're just recycling. And now what are we detoxing for? But now we just have angry things in our body, and we gotta get them out. And I think that was one of my biggest barriers, is like I was getting stuff moving, which is great. We don't want it to set up shop and be stagnant. But I wasn't able to physically get it out of my body as efficiently as it could have been. And that's I think, really where I went wrong is I should have really prepared my body for that better.

Ayla Wolf: 35:55

I think one of the things that I see all the time is that we automatically assume that our kidneys can handle. Everything because, oh, it's like, well, my labs don't show that I'm in kidney failure, so I can do a detox, and my kidneys can handle it. But the reality is, when you are all of a sudden clearing out all kinds of mycotoxins from the brain that has to go somewhere, right? And your kidneys have to filter everything out. And those are, you know, these, you're basically putting a huge amount of stress on the kidneys, and so in my own practice, too, even when I'm dealing with brain inflammation, I really am emphasizing the importance of you. People need to do kidney support. They need to do things like saunas that can also just help. Because your skin is one of your largest elimination organs, there's just a lot you have to approach it from so many different angles. It's not just here. Take one thing that's gonna like, you know, clear mold out of your body. It's like, No, you need your organs working really well.

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 36:52

right? And I feel like those are the biggest points I hit with people. Like, are you sweating consistently, frequently, easily? And like, Are you pooping at least twice a day? Because if you're not where is it gonna go? Like it's gotta, it's gotta leave the body, like your liver has gotta be healthy, your kidneys have to be ready to work, like your colon has to be pushing out those toxins. And if you're not sweating, whoo. Like that is such a good way to just get it out wherever it is. It speeds up your lymph like, there's so many things to like prep.

Ayla Wolf: 37:21

and the nice thing is that they now have all these

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 37:21

I agree that was a big game changer for portable sauna blankets they've made the sauna thing easy, more me. And I mean, I know people detox from these things on their easily accessible for people. own, but I always just highly, highly recommend, like, finding a trained practitioner. Like, learn from my mistakes your mistakes, like, just make this quick, make it easy, and get healthy sooner, for sure,

Ayla Wolf: 37:49

yeah. And there's a lot of troubleshooting that has to go on for every individual who lives trying to deal with that kind of thing. And so it's like, yeah, you might try one thing, and then you have, you know, this big response to it, and then figuring out, okay, is this response normal, or does it mean that the dose is too high, or I'm doing this too fast, or is, like, you know, that troubleshooting piece is definitely best done by a trained professional,

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 38:10

yeah, yeah. Or you have to be super in tune with your body, and, just so aware. And I think, I think that's the one advantage I had when I was, you know, essentially navigating this mold detox. I was doing a lot of my own research, and I think being an athlete and so hyper aware of how does my body feel, what does it need today? What do I need rest from? I think was like, what really was able to help me, you know, stay in tune while I was, like, crafting my own detox from the internet. But, yeah, I don't know if I would recommend that route. There are definitely big, important pieces I missed along the way. Right, right?

Ayla Wolf: 38:46

Maybe Dr Google doesn't have the best protocol. Maybe chat GPT has got it figured out.

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 38:52

Maybe chat GPT now,

Ayla Wolf: 38:56

well, thanks for sharing all of your information, your wisdom and your history of kind of what you dealt with. I think that's really helpful for people to hear what others have gone through so they realize they're not alone. Yeah,

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 39:08

yeah, absolutely. I know there's a lot of people struggling with these things, and it can feel super alienating at the time. You know, I have this concussion system symptom like, am I going to be on the team? Or like I'm struggling with mold or parasites? You know, am I the only one? And you're not. There's so many of us that are just walking around and don't know that they're suffering, or, like, maybe don't know there's help, and I know I felt that way, so I can't be the only one, right? So, yeah,

Ayla Wolf: 39:34

absolutely, yeah. And where can people find you if they're interested in learning more?

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 39:37

Yeah. So I am at Vibrant Life Center chiropractic. It's in Oakdale, Minnesota. I work with my dad. He's also a chiropractor. I do functional medicine there for mold and parasites. I obviously do some concussion work for people there with chiropractic. And then I'm also on Instagram. If you want to follow me, my handle is Dr danielle.dc

Ayla Wolf: 40:00

awesome. And you're also an animal chiropractor.

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 40:03

yes, I'm also an animal chiropractor.

Ayla Wolf: 40:05

I love that.

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 40:06

Yes, health for the whole family. I'm a, I'm a big animal lover, like, I love your brain, I love your nervous system. I love your animals also.

Ayla Wolf: 40:14

Very cool. Love it. Well, thanks for coming on the show.

Dr. Danielle Fleming: 40:17

Thank you for having me.

Ayla Wolf: 40:21

If people want to learn more, they can go to lifeafterimpact.com that's where we have our blog, and we have information on my book that should be released here soon in the spring. You could sign up to hear about that as soon as it comes out. And then we also have links to all of our other resources as well. Thanks for joining, and we'll see you next time. 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 material. Included is that 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, and consumers of this information should seek the advice of a medical professional for any and all health related issues. A link to our full medical disclaimer is available in the notes you