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Concussion Treatment in Naperville

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An impact to the head or a sudden jarring of the body does more than just “rattle” your brain. It creates a cascade of neurological and physiological shifts that can stall your life.

At Action Chiropractic and Sports Injury Center, we recognize that a concussion is a functional injury. Our mission is to bridge the gap between traditional “rest and wait” protocols and the active, evidence-based concussion treatment required to return you to peak performance.

What is Concussion Care?

Concussion care is a specialized, multi-system approach designed to manage and resolve the symptoms of a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI). It’S about identifying which systems, vestibular, ocular, or cervical, were compromised during the injury.
  • With a high-level rehabilitation approach, your concussive rehabilitation plan includes:
  • Integrating physical therapy to restore natural movement and joint function.
  • Performing neurological drills to sharpen your brain and body connection.
  • Enhanced spinal well-being in order to remove nerve interference and muscular strain.
  • Strong postural musculature is required to attain long-term healing and performance.
  • Stimulating exercises for re-establishing the vestibular and balance systems.
  • Combining targeted adjustments with functional movement for achieving maximum results.

Common Concussion Signs

The manifestation of a brain injury is rarely linear. You might feel “fine” immediately after a hit, only to have a fog settle in hours or days later.
Our specialized concussion management chiropractors look for a variety of red flags that indicate your nervous system is struggling to recalibrate:
  • Physical: There’ll be persistent pressure in the head, dizziness, light sensitivity, and nausea.
  • Cognitive: You may feel “slowed down,” difficulty concentrating, or a noticeable “brain fog.”
  • Emotional: You are likely to experience heightened irritability, unexplained sadness, or increased anxiety.
  • Sleep: You may find yourself drowsy during the day or unable to fall asleep at night.
If you are experiencing a combination of any of these, your body is signaling that it’s time for a professional intervention.

Persistent Concussion Symptoms

While most individuals bounce back from a head injury quickly, others face chronic obstacles. When standard healing stalls, recognizing your lingering issues is the first step toward recovery:
  • Chronic Symptom Disruption: Most individuals recover within two weeks. However, up to 40% face Persistent Concussion Symptoms.
  • Stalled Natural Recovery: Symptoms refusing to clear up after 14 days indicate your internal healing process has stalled.
    • High-Risk Demographics: Lingering symptoms occur more often in females, teenagers, older adults, and highly stressed individuals.
  • Pre-Existing Health Complications: Having a history of anxiety, depression, prior head trauma, or improper care might delay your recovery.

Tips for Managing Concussion Symptoms

Navigating the first few days following an injury requires a proactive yet careful approach to preserve brain energy and protect your nervous system. Implement these clinical strategies immediately:
  • Prioritize Initial Rest: Restrict both physical exertion and heavy cognitive activities for the first 24 to 48 hours to give your brain a chance to rest.
  • Avoid Driving immediately: Your reaction times, depth perception, and visual processing are temporarily impaired. Do not operate a motor vehicle for at least 24 hours after your injury.
  • Implement an Anti-Inflammatory Diet: Avoid processed meats, fast foods, and refined sugars, which promote brain inflammation. Fuel your recovery with antioxidant-rich whole foods, fruits, and vegetables instead.
  • Do Not Self-Medicate: Avoid taking over-the-counter pain medications, alcohol, or unprescribed drugs. These substances can mask worsening neurological symptoms and make it difficult to monitor your actual recovery.

Concussion Treatment & Rehabilitation

The old medical advice of sitting in a dark room until your symptoms disappear is outdated. Modern evidence proves that prolonged rest can actually delay your recovery. A practical and effective clinical network focuses on early, active intervention starting within the first week of your injury:
  • Controlled Active Exercise: Between days 5 and 7 post-injury, supervised, sub-symptom physical activity using protocols like the Buffalo Concussion Treadmill Test work best. Improve blood flow to your brain and accelerate cellular healing with this safe, progressive movement.
  • Manual Cervical Therapy: Because whiplash and neck sprains always happen alongside a concussion, precise manual adjustments to the cervical spine offer exceptional results. Get relief from persistent headaches, dizziness, and neck stiffness mimicking concussive symptoms.
  • Visual & Vestibular Rehabilitation: Targeted balance and eye-tracking drills can correct visual disturbances, spatial disorientation, and concentration issues.

Our Approach to Concussion Care

We don’t believe in a passive recovery. Our clinical model for concussion and treatment stands on the philosophy that movement is medicine when you apply it with precision. We begin by assessing the “neck-brain” connection. Many concussion symptoms are exacerbated by “whiplash-style” trauma to the upper cervical spine. It mimics the headaches and dizziness associated with the brain injury itself.

Often, the mechanical strain on the neck inhibits the blood flow to the brain and the nerve signals to other systems. Through specialized chiropractic care for concussions, we take care of the mechanical strain in your neck. Our protocols for Neck pain relief in Naperville target cervical misalignments to eliminate pain and affect neurological healing.

From there, we add vestibular rehabilitation to create equilibrium and eye training to correct tracking issues. This comprehensive treatment for a concussion addresses all associated systems to avoid one of them becoming the single link that stops your recovery.

Who Do We Help?

Our advanced chiropractic facility is for those who refuse to stay on the sidelines. We specialize in helping:
  • Athletes: From youth soccer players to professional competitors who need a safe, data-driven return-to-play protocol.
  • Tactical Professionals: Police, fire, and military personnel whose roles require split-second cognitive clarity.
  • Desk Warriors: Professionals struggling with screen-induced headaches and “computer fog” following a head injury.
  • Students: Children and teens who need to return to the classroom without their grades slipping due to cognitive fatigue.

Benefits of Chiropractic Concussion Care

Opting for a chiropractic-led recovery model provides a critical advantage by addressing the physical “housing” of your nervous system. Our clinical approach at Action Chiropractic and Sports Injury Center actively rehabilitates the structural and neurological links between your spine and brain. We focus on the aspects affecting your recovery by ensuring your body is physically capable of supporting neurological healing. Beyond spinal care, we utilize extremity adjusting techniques in Naperville to synchronize every joint with your nervous system for peak symmetry.

Reduced Headache Frequency
Correcting cervical misalignments removes the primary structural trigger for post-concussion tension. It’s through expertly realigning the neck that our practitioners do to stop the pain.

Improved Balance
Correcting cervical misalignments removes the primary structural trigger for post-concussion tension. It’s through expertly realigning the neck that our practitioners do to stop the pain.

Faster Cognitive Recovery
Correcting cervical misalignments removes the primary structural trigger for post-concussion tension. It’s through expertly realigning the neck that our practitioners do to stop the pain.

Autonomic Balance
Correcting cervical misalignments removes the primary structural trigger for post-concussion tension. It’s through expertly realigning the neck that our practitioners do to stop the pain.

Why Choose Action Chiropractic & Sports Injury Center for Concussion Treatment?

We are not a “generalist” clinic. We’re a performance-based center that applies the same rigor to treatment for concussions as we do to elite athletic training.

Our focus is on objective results and rapid timelines. We don’t put you on a generic, long-term plan as we provide the exact interventions needed to achieve neurological stability.

Choose us and expect a partner who’s dedicated to getting you back to your 100%.

FAQS

1. How do I know if I have a concussion?

A loss of consciousness is a sure sign. But you don’t need to lose consciousness to have a concussion. If you’ve sustained a hit and feel “off,” dizzy, or develop a headache that worsens with light or sound, you should undergo a professional evaluation immediately.

2. Can a chiropractor treat concussions?

Yes, specifically through the management of the cervical spine and the vestibular system. While we don’t “adjust the brain,” we treat the physical and neurological structures that are damaged alongside the brain, which is often the missing piece in standard medical care. As part of this comprehensive approach, we often utilize dry needling of deep trigger points in the neck and shoulder to allow blood flow after a head injury.

3. What is post-concussion syndrome?

This happens when symptoms persist for weeks or months following an injury. Usually, there’s a specific need for post-concussion symptom management to address the lingering inflammation and mechanical neck issues.

4. Is it safe for my child/teenager to receive concussion care here?

Absolutely. We use gentle, non-invasive techniques tailored to the developing nervous system of younger athletes, focusing on a conservative yet effective path back to school and sports.

5. How long does concussion recovery take?

There is no “standard” timeline, but with active concussion treatment, you may expect to see significant functional improvement within 2 to 4 weeks. Our goal is to shorten that window through proactive, movement-based therapy.
Dr. Norgaard’s first exposure to chiropractic was when he was a high school football player at Neuqua Valley in Naperville, Illinois. Nagging injuries led him to Action Chiropractic and Dr. Durnas. He was amazed with the results he got and knew that the treatments provided at Action Chiropractic were the best way to address his ailments.
After high school, Dr. Norgaard left Naperville and attended Central College in Pella, Iowa. While at Central, he majored in biology and played football, further piquing his interest in sports injuries and how to treat them. When he wasn’t in the classroom or on the football field, Dr. Norgaard spent his time volunteering at hospitals, and at various clinics. This is when he really developed a passion for helping people get better.
His experiences as an athlete, chiropractic patient, and volunteer shaped his decision to become a chiropractor.
After graduating from Central, Dr. Norgaard continued his education at Palmer College of Chiropractic.
While at Palmer, Dr. Norgaard took several extracurricular courses focusing on spinal diagnosis and therapy, soft tissue care, and diagnosis and treatment of the extremities. He completed a 4-month internship with Dr. Durnas at Action Chiropractic and Sports Injury Center and further developed his skills as a physician.
He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Palmer in October of 2021 and received the Academic Excellence Award.
After graduation, Dr. Norgaard joined the team at Action Chiropractic and Sports Injury Center. He currently resides in the Naperville area with his wife, Shannon, son, Parker, and dog, Alby.
“I chose to become a chiropractor because I was helped by chiropractic. I was in such discomfort it took me over 3 minutes to put on my socks. After seeing a chiropractor, and regaining the ability to tie my shoes, I realized that taking loads of NSAIDs did not address the fact that there was something causing the pain. The more I learned about it, I found that Chiropractic doesn’t just hide symptoms, like I was trying to do with pills, it fixes the origin of the problem.”
Dr. Durnas graduated from the University of Illinois with a Bachelors of Science Degree in Biology and Bachelors of Arts degree in Chemistry. After graduation he worked in research and development for 3 years and dabbled in powerlifting and professional wrestling. That’s what lead him to chiropractic school. While at Palmer College of Chiropractic, he focused on learning how to best help the athlete. He took several extracurricular courses on how to address soft tissue injuries, how to adjust extremities, and how to better manage sports injuries. He graduated in June of 2012, where we were the Palmer Clinical Excellence Award winner and a keynote speaker at commencement.
In 2019, Dr. Durnas earned his Diplomate from the American Chiropractic Board of Sports Physicians (DACBSP)®. He is only the 427th chiropractor in history to earn this designation, and only the 6th recipient in the history of Illinois. He completed over 300 hours of classroom and online courses focusing on in depth on the diagnosis and treatment of sports injuries, concussions, and emergency procedures, and had over 100 on the field hours with athletes that ranged from cross fitters, professional and high school football players, professional BMX and Motocross riders, triathletes, and runners. Dr. Durnas passed a 6-part practical exam and a 250 question Board exam and contributed a case study involving nerve damage in a professional athlete following a hit to the shoulder.