Brain Health and Chiropractic

09/05/2026

On her first day, she could handle five degrees on the tilt table before her body gave out.

Four days later she left her walker at home.

I share this not as a promise — every nervous system has its own timeline — but because of what she said when she came in: "Everyone told me my scans look normal." She'd stopped expecting anyone to look further.

Looking further is the practice. Her brain and her blood flow had stopped talking to each other properly, and once we could see exactly where, we could work on it.

If you've been told everything looks normal and you still don't feel normal, that's exactly who I built The Brain Reset Quiz Score for: https://brainhealthandchiro.scoreapp.com?utm_source=social&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=brain-reset-quiz

— Dr. Cooper Dykstra

09/04/2026

Her symptoms started in October 2024.

She was dealing with:

• Vision loss
• Dizziness and balance problems
• Migraines
• Ringing in her ears
• Numbness
• Visual disturbances and light sensitivity
• Loss of independence
• Unable to drive

By the time she came to us, her symptoms weren’t just affecting how she felt — they were affecting her ability to live her life independently.

Her initial symptom score was 155/160, with 160 representing the highest symptom burden on our scale.

Her balance testing placed her around the 0–5th percentile, and because of the instability in her visual system, she scored 8 on her initial 60-second reaction-time test (we shoot for 80 at the office)

Then we went to work.

Four days later:

Her balance improved to approximately the 75–80th percentile.

Her reaction-time score went from 8 → 53.

In four days.

This is what I love about the brain.

Neuroplasticity is the brain’s incredible ability to change and adapt in response to the inputs we give it.

No matter how low someone’s starting point may be, we shouldn’t assume that’s where they’re going to stay.

When we can identify areas of the nervous system that aren’t functioning well and provide targeted input, the amount of change the brain is capable of can be incredible.

This is the power of neuroplasticity. 🧠

So proud of the work she put in during her Brain Reset Program and excited to see where she goes from here.

09/03/2026

You stand up, the room grays out, your heart takes off, and you grab the counter so you don't go down.

If that's you, I want you to hear something first: you're not imagining it, and you're not fragile. Something real is happening between your brain and your blood flow, and it has a name.

Most of the people I see with POTS have already been told their tests look fine. They don't feel fine. That gap is exactly where my work lives.

We start by measuring what's actually happening in your nervous system — not guessing from a symptom list. Then we go from there, together, one step at a time.

If you want to know where you stand today, start with The Brain Reset Quiz Score — ten questions, your results right away: https://brainhealthandchiro.scoreapp.com?utm_source=social&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=brain-reset-quiz

— Dr. Cooper Dykstra

08/29/2026

What happens when your tests keep coming back "normal," but you know something isn't right?

In Episode 1 of The Brain Reset Podcast, I share my own complex health journey and break down how functional neurology changed the way I understand POTS, post-concussion symptoms, and complex neurological cases.

▶️

When chronic health conditions leave every test result normal, what...

08/26/2026

It didn't knock you out. That doesn't mean it didn't count.

The hits that cause the most trouble are usually the ones nobody made a fuss about at the time. You got up. You finished the game. You went to work the next day.

Then six weeks later the headaches start. Light bothers you. You read a paragraph twice and still miss it. You're off-balance in a grocery aisle. And by then nobody connects it back to the hit — including you.

Here's the part that gets missed: sprain an ankle and everyone agrees you need rehab. Take a hit to the head and the plan is rest, then back to normal. So the injured pathways never get retrained.

They can be. We measure what the injury actually changed — eye movement, balance, autonomic response — and rehab those directly.

Free 15-minute Discovery Call. (605) 799-7579

Sioux Falls · brainhealthandchiro.com

08/25/2026

Eight POTS symptoms that keep getting missed.

Not because anyone is careless. Because none of them show up on a standard blood panel, and most of them sound like something else when you say them out loud.

Neck and shoulder ache that eases the moment you lie down. Worse after you eat, especially carbs. Hot showers wreck you. Feet turning red or purple when you stand still. Exercise that makes you worse instead of better. Waking at 3am with your heart pounding. Full after a few bites, with nausea that comes and goes. Brain fog that lifts the second you lie down.

Read that list again and notice what it has in common. Almost every one of them is about what happens when you stand up, when you eat, or when you get warm — and all three of those are jobs your autonomic nervous system is supposed to handle without you thinking about it.

A normal blood panel doesn't measure that. Something has to actually measure what standing up does to you.

Free 15-minute Discovery Call. 📞 (605) 799-7579

Sioux Falls · brainhealthandchiropractic.com

08/21/2026

Dr. Cooper is starting a podcast.

The Brain Reset Podcast. Every other week — patients telling their own story, practitioners worth listening to, and the questions we get asked in this office every single day.

If you've ever left an appointment somewhere with "everything looks normal" and no plan, this show is the long version of the conversation we wish you'd had.

Subscribe on YouTube: .cooperdykstra — link in bio.

First episode drops soon.

Sioux Falls · brainhealthandchiropractic.com

08/17/2026

Every post-concussion case starts the same way. One year old, five, or twenty — the process is the same.

The first visit is 60 to 90 minutes, and we build the whole picture in three parts.

First, the Symptom Index. Subjective questions, so we understand what's going on and how you're feeling.

Then a bedside neuro exam. Balance, motor tone, sensory, reflexes, vestibular reflexes, vision.

Then the diagnostics — the numbers. We test your balance. We check your eye movements with a VNG: in the dark versus the light, tracking left and right, all of it graphed. And we test reaction time — how many dots on a big board can you hit in 60 seconds.

We take all of it and calculate a score out of 100. So you can see exactly where your brain is.

We're shooting for 100. Every single time.

Concussion at any age deserves real answers.

Call to schedule your evaluation today.
(605) 799-7579

08/15/2026

She came to us from California after dealing with chronic headaches, nausea, and low energy following a concussion, layered with other stresses that had pushed her nervous system further and further from baseline.

One of the things we looked closely at was the relationship between her vestibular system and interoception.

Most people think the vestibular system is just about balance.

It’s much bigger than that.

Your brain is constantly trying to answer two questions:

Where am I in space?
and
What is happening inside my body?

Your vestibular system provides the brain with information about head movement, gravity, and where you are in space.

Interoception is your brain’s ability to sense and interpret what’s happening inside you, things like heart rate, breathing, hunger, nausea, temperature, and other internal signals.

Those systems don’t operate independently.

When the brain isn’t processing and integrating that information well, symptoms can show up in ways that don’t always seem connected:

Headaches
Nausea
Dizziness or motion sensitivity
Fatigue
Exercise intolerance
Feeling overwhelmed in busy environments
Difficulty regulating after physical or emotional stress

That’s why after a concussion, I’m not only interested in where it hurts.

I want to know how well the brain is processing the information coming in from the eyes, the vestibular system, the body, and the internal environment, and how well it can create an appropriate response.

Sometimes the symptoms that seem completely unrelated are actually different clues pointing toward the same system.

Really proud of the work she put in and the progress she made during her time with us!

08/15/2026

A pediatric patient came in after months of being told everything looked normal.

Normal labs. Normal imaging. Normal exam. And still couldn't get through the day without the room tilting.

What a standard workup doesn't check is how the brain and the balance system are talking to each other. That conversation can break down long before anything shows up on a scan — which is why "your tests are fine" and "I feel fine" are two very different sentences.

At Brain Health and Chiropractic, we start by measuring what nobody measured.

Book a 15-minute Discovery
Call → (605) 799-7579