Brain injury is confusing to people who don’t have one. It’s natural to want to say something, to voice an opinion or offer advice, even when we don’t understand.

And when you care for a loved one with a brain injury, it’s easy to get burnt out and say things out of frustration.

Here are a few things you might find yourself saying that are probably not helpful:

It’s been a few months after your injury, and you’re recovering pretty well. So, you take off your favorite comfy pants and pull out your old jeans, but ouch! They won’t zip up anymore. You vow to go on a diet and all but starve yourself for the next few weeks. You discover that it’s now impossible to make the scale budge, no matter what you do. Talk about adding insult to injury.

Research shows that in the months and years after a brain injury, it’s not only more common to gain weight than it is to lose weight, but it also becomes more difficult to shed the pounds. The problem might be directly related to the brain injury. Here’s how:

There are many supplements that claim to improve brain health. Sometimes research supports these claims, sometimes not. Still, a person who is desperate to feel better may be tempted to add one supplement after another—until the pillbox is full and the wallet is empty.

If you’re looking cut down to the most essential supplements, consider the following three—omega 3-DHA, vitamin D, and probiotics. The research supporting these supplements as agents of brain health and mood balance is so compelling that nearly everyone who has a brain injury should consider taking them.

Lingraphica is a company that creates devices and apps for people with aphasia and/or apraxia (communication disorders that sometimes occur after a brain injury). They have two devices that “speak”: AllTalk, which is like a laptop and TouchTalk, which is like a tablet. You can customize these devices to say whatever words and phrases you want. These two devices may be covered by insurance, so it’s worth taking a look.

(Excellent coverage of returning soldiers can be seen on OWN—Our America with Lisa Ling: Invisible Wounds of War.) see below

Has your loved one returned from combat with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)?

Did you know that many of these soldiers may also have blast-related traumatic brain injury (TBI), but are not being diagnosed?

Here’s the problem–PTSD and blast-TBI both have similar symptoms, but PTSD is easier to diagnose and cheaper to treat. So, PTSD is often the primary diagnosis while blast-TBI goes undiagnosed. The result of this misdiagnosis is not only that the blast-TBI is left untreated, but that the soldier is more likely to return to combat and be exposed to even more brain-damaging blast.