Alireza C. Transcript

Hi everyone. My name is Dr Alireza Chiosari. I’m a board-certified chiropractor neurologist and the founder of California Brain and Spine Center in Calabasas, California. Today I want to take you on a journey, my personal journey, into the world of concussion care and share what I have learned from working with so many incredible patients.

If you’re a concussion survivor, caregiver, health care provider, or simply someone looking to to better understand those challenges, this conversation is for you. My path into the medical field wasn’t traditional. For many years, I was an electrical engineer. I earned my bachelor’s degree in Iran, completed my master’s degree in the UK, and built a successful engineering career in Los Angeles. It was a good life, but everything changed the day my mom suffered a concussion.

She wasn’t in a major accident. There was no dramatic moment, but the effects on her brain were devastating. She suffered from dizziness, brain fog, memory loss, overwhelming fatigue, light sensitivity, and intense anxiety. Simple activities, like watching TV, driving, even walking down the street, became overwhelming for her. We went from specialist to specialist, physical therapists, chiropractors, neurologists, cardiologists, hoping someone could help. But time and again, we heard the same thing. The scans look fine, just rest, you’ll get better. But she wasn’t getting better. In fact, she was getting worse. 

Eventually, we found the doctor specializing in functional neurology, someone who understood that recovery isn’t just about what you see on the imaging, it’s about how the brain functions through targeted therapies and a carefully designed plan, my mom began to heal. Her smile returned. Her energy came back, and her independence came back. Watching that transformation was priceless. It was like life-changing, not just for her, but also for me. And in that moment, I realized there is this is the kind of work I want to dedicate my life to. I left engineering behind, went back to school, became a chiropractor, and completed an intensive neurology program. Today at California Brain and Spine Center, I specialize in helping people recover from concussions, post-concussion syndrome, vestibular disorders, dysautonomia, and other brain-based injuries. 

Let’s talk a little bit about concussions, because there are so many misconceptions out there. A concussion isn’t just a mild bump on the head, it’s a brain injury, a disruption in how the brain communicates with itself and with the rest of the body. And you don’t need a major accident to suffer one. You don’t need to lose consciousness. You don’t need even a visible head injury; even a small hit, a quick jolt, or a minor bump, can cause significant changes inside the brain. I recently had a patient who developed severe dizziness and brain fog after lightly bumping her head while getting into her car. It wasn’t a major crash. There was no blackout, yet inside her brain, critical symptoms fell out of sync, and her daily life changed overnight. The symptoms of concussion can touch every aspect of life. Patients often experience dizziness, headaches, brain fog, light and sound sensitivity, balance issues, anxiety and depression, memory and focus problems. 

Imagine feeling like you are standing on a rocking boat, even when you are perfectly still, or imagine trying to read a simple text message, but your eyes won’t hold still long enough to focus on a single word. That’s what so many survivors experience day after day. Brain fog after concussion isn’t just feeling tired. It’s like your thoughts are trapped underwater, sluggish, slow, and frustrating, and when there’s light and sound sensitivity, bright lights can feel like knives stabbing your eyes. Simple activities, most of most of us take for granted, like grocery shopping, scrolling through your phone, walking the dog, become exhausting, sometimes impossible. 

Another patient, remember, a man in his 40s was a confident public speaker before his concussion, afterward, even holding a basic conversation overwhelmed him. Helping him rebuild his cognitive stamina, gave him gave him his life and his confidence back. Unfortunately, too many concussion survivors feel completely alone because you can’t see a concussion the way you see a broken bone. People around you may not understand. Friends and family might say things like, “You look fine.” “Why aren’t you better yet?” And when MRI and CTS can come back, normal patients are told you are fine, just give it time. But time alone often isn’t enough without active rehabilitation, many patients stay stuck. surviving, but not truly living. This invisibility, the sense that no one understands what you’re going through, can be one of the hardest parts of the recovery. 

I cannot tell you how many times patients have cried during their first consultation, not just because of their symptoms, but because they have– they finally found someone who believed them. There are a few misconceptions about concussion that I really want to clear up. First, you don’t have to lose consciousness to have a concussion. Most concussions happen without any blackout. Second, a normal MRI or CT scan doesn’t mean everything is fine. Concussions are functional injuries. They affect how the brain processes information, not its structure. And last one is rest alone isn’t always enough, while the rest is important early on, many patients need active, targeted rehabilitation to truly heal. At California Brain and Spine Center, we take a completely different approach to concussion care. We dig deep, looking not just at what’s happening on the surface, but at how the brain is functioning beneath we do exams like VNG, we measure how the eyes track and move, since different types of eye movements are controlled by different parts of the brain. This gives us incredible, incredible insight into brain function. CAPS test. We test balance, body awareness, and sensor integration, and we do a full neurological examination. We check moderate strength, sensory function, reflexes, and cranial nerves to find even subtle dysfunctions. 

I like to describe the brain as a symphony orchestra to my patients, so I tell them, your eyes, ears, muscles, joints, they’re all instruments that must work together to create harmony. After a concussion, the conductor, the brain, gets confused, and the result is noise instead of music. Our goal is to retrain the conductor, to bring back the harmony. Everything we do is based on neuroplasticity, the brain’s remarkable ability to adapt and rewire itself. Think of it like forging a new hiking trail through a dense forest. At first, the path is rough, overgrown, but the more often you walk it, consistently, intentionally, the clearer and stronger it becomes. We do it through therapies like visual rehabilitation with stimulant retraining, proprioceptive activation, cognitive retraining, sensory motor integration, we stimulate the brain’s natural healing abilities, helping patients rebuild the skills they lost. And every patient’s program is completely individualized, because no two brains and no two concussions are exactly the same, and the results are life-changing. 

I remember one woman who cried tears of joy simply because she could take her dog for a walk again without getting dizzy, or another patient, someone who had all but given up on working again, returned to his career stronger than ever again, Recovery is not always easy, but with the right approach and the right support, it’s absolutely possible. So if you’re listening to this today and you’re struggling with a concussion, please know you are not alone. You are not broken, and there is hope, your brain can heal. It just needs the right guidance and the right tools.

Again, at California Brain and Spine Center, we specialize in helping patients who have been told there is nothing more we can do, but we believe in your brain’s potential, and we believe in you.

Thank you so much for spending this time with me today, and stay hopeful, stay strong, and know that healing is possible. Thank you again.