FAQ - Post-Concussion Syndrome
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post concussion syndrome...any advice?


im suffering from post concussion syndrome. i got my concussion end of september, it is my second concussion of my life (first one back in feb.) the first one did not give me any problems after a week. its now been 2 full months and im still suffering...please anybody give me advice or helpful information. thank you
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Research a neurologist in your area who has expertise in brain injuries - then go see him or her. Even if you have to be driven for hours to get there. To go to a neurologist with out this expertise is a waste of time and money. It may take several months to get an appt with an expert. So get on their cancellation list so you can come in earlier if someone cancels an appointment.

Meanwhile, listen to your body. Pain is its way of it telling you not to do something. Try to resume as much regular activity as you can, but if your body is in pain etc. from trying a certain thing - back off.

I asked my neurologist about the no pain no gain theory of exercise as it might relate to my brain injury. In other words, is it like exercise where if you push it and you are in pain or get sore that the body will build more muscle and in the long run you will be better. He said the brain doesn't work like that.

You may find non-profit brain injury support groups in your area (unfortunately mine had a long waiting list.) Also there are the national brain injury associations (not a lawyer's group) www.biausa.org, and there are also state associations. They can provide resources and referrals to doctors etc. by patients who have seen them.

I know it feels like your life has been turned upside down and mashed through a grinder right about now. Nothing is the same.

Keep trying within your abilities. I have seen quite a lot of improvement over the years. However, I still suffer problems 5 years later. Most people are over these symptoms in 6 months. Hopefully you will fall into that category.

Good luck and best wishes for a speedy recovery!  (+ info)

Post CONCUSSION Syndrome without hitting head??


I went to my internist for my symptoms such as dizziness, light-headedness, occasional blurred vision, extreme fatigue. I was ina car accident on June 11, 2007. I was rear-ended and my head did not hit anything except the back of my head rest. I had whiplash but its been 2 months since the accident and I'm still experiencing these symptoms. My internist thinks it could possibly be a post-concussion syndrome even though there was no direct head trauma. Is this possible? Does anyone have any info on this? Please Help!
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absolutely! i was hit by a car two years ago, and didn't hit my head on anything, but when your head snaps or when there is a jarring motion, it makes the brain hit against the skull which can cause bruising. after i was hit by the car, i definitely had post-concussion syndrome for a few days.

because 2 months is a really long time, perhaps you should get a CT scan to make sure everything is ok! ask your internist what s/he thinks you should do, but with my situation, it just took time to recover.

i hope you feel better!!!  (+ info)

Basal Skull Fracture - Post Concussion Syndrome???


I was reading about Post Concussion Syndrome, and it really sounds similar to some things I continue to go through, some 15 years after a basal skull fracture (several concussions through the years too). Is there something more associated with the skull fracture with some of the same symptoms....but maybe a little more severe?
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You should ask a neurologist - they're learning more every day. You might be interested in this web site about new treatment. Think it's University of Buffalo, NY.

http://www.buffalo.edu/reporter/vol38/vol38n8/articles/WillerConcussion.html

Willer is lead author on the paper describing the new method, published in the September issue of Current Treatment Options in Neurology.

"Most people with PCS have symptoms of depression," said Willer, "so antidepressant treatment makes sense. However, antidepressants do little more than relieve some of the depression symptoms. We were interested in a treatment that didn't just treat the symptoms, but actually improved the patient's brain function."

The researchers call their new treatment "regulated exercise." The approach consists of determining the ideal exercise program for each athlete based on a number of individual physiological indicators at baseline.

Patients are tested every two to three weeks with specialized equipment at the sports medicine clinic to determine their progress, and a new program is developed based on those results.

Willer and co-author John Leddy, clinical associate professor of orthopaedics and rehabilitation sciences, indicated it is too early to call the treatment a cure, but they are optimistic about the results so far.

The researchers described the treatment method in mid-September at the 2006 Brain Injury Conference of the Americas in Miami, where the response was very favorable, according to Willer.

"Professionals at the meeting were delighted that our approach to treatment of post-concussion syndrome doesn't involve any medications and is very cost-efficient. We were surprised to learn that we are among only a few investigators interested in people with symptoms that won't go away.  (+ info)

is this post-concussion syndrome?


I am in my late 20's and fell on ice over a month ago. I slammed by body down pretty hard, landing hard on my back and backside. I don't think I hit my head and definitely didn't get knocked out, but later that night I had this weird sensation in my head that wouldn't let me sleep...like a shock or strange vibration. It then brought on one of the worst panic attacks I've ever had. 2 days later, horrible dizziness set in followed by nausea. The e.r. said it was post-concussion syndrome. I've had every test done since then and nothing abnormal shows up.

-dizziness, light-headedness and unbalance (not vertigo)...sometimes followed by nausea
-sensation when I try to relax and go to sleep, very unsettling
-intense pressure in front and top of head, sometimes between ears.
-sensitivity to noise...can't even tolerate music anymore, brings on intense dizziness and nausea.

Has anyone had these symptoms as a result of post-concussion syndrome or anything else?
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u have to do an x-ray to your neck to make sure that you don't have whiplash, to know more about it, plz visit : http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/whiplash/DS01037

btw: I have some of your symptoms because of a stupid arachnoid cyst in my occipital.

good luck  (+ info)

Post Concussion Syndrome help?


I was in my p.e class playing basketball, some other kids were kicking the basketball and it happend to be that one kick of the ball hit me kinda hard in the head, I did not pass out or anything. Then the next day I started to feel this wierd dizzy feeling that still last today, it had been more than a month. So I went to the doctor and she diagnost me and said it was a post concussion syndrome. I love to play basketball and i am not sure if that is going to make the problem worse. So i want you guys to answer, how long will it last, will exercise make it worse or better, and tips on how to shorten the injury. By the way the only symtom I have is the dizzyness. Thanks.
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post concussion syndrome or something else?


hi im 15 years old and i wrestle. in the wrestling season i hitt my head semi hard on the matt then someones head and didnt feel any diffrent untill the next day and i kept wrestling 4 more matches because of the pressure of the coaches. then i couldnt take what i felt like, and its very hard to explain exactly what i felt. but then the hospital said i had a concussion and i was out for 3 weeks but went back in 2 weeks and hit my head again but i always felt the same feeling as when i first got the "concussion" then i went to a neurologist and they said i had post concussion syndrome.. and this thing has been lasting for at least 3 months. the syptoms i have are: i get headaches, bad ballance when my eyes are shut, and i dont feel like im in my own body any more almost like im out of my body, i usta feel like im not in reality anymore now i only feel that feeling a little, i feel like im in a dream too, like im in a movie or somthing, and i have been having very wierd thoughts ( like insane thoughts) and i know i would never do these thoughts but it scares me. please help me figure out what this problem is because i dont think this is post concussion. sorry its so long, just wanted to give you all the details.
i also cutt about 15 pounds when i was allready pretty skinny
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First off start eating better and don't loose weight just to play at school. Your health comes first.
There is some brain swelling in there and that need to be given time to heal. This can take up to 2 or 3 years to heal completely.
You now face a choice of finding some thing other than sports in school, or permanent brain damage.
Take it easy for a long while you will get better.  (+ info)

Do I have post-concussion syndrome?


I was in a car accident 8 weeks ago when I got rear-ended. For the last 6 weeks, I experience headaches randomly and frequently (4-5 times a week). Light hurts my eyes more than it used to, and I feel like bright lights sting. When the doctor made my follow a little flashlight with my eyes, I could barely do it, and then I just started looking in places where the light wasn't, because everything seemed so blurred. I sometimes feel like I'm listening to a long beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep in my ear. (When I looked up symptoms, the closes thing was called "ringing in the ears," which I guess is the same?)

I never passed out during the car accident. My doctor thinks I may have still had a concussion, and he only told me to take some Tylenol. The symptoms aren't going away, and I'm a teen, so I should heal fast. Do I have post-concussion syndrome? How can I make it stop? (I plan on returning to the doctor.)
Oh, and I had whiplash.
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The symptoms you're describing sound very much like a concussion syndrome. I believe it would be best to see a Neurologist for further diagnosis and possible treatment. These things can be quite problematic and sometimes some symptoms never go away depending on how badly things got hurt. A Specialist would be the best source for realistic answers.  (+ info)

What to do about Post Concussion Syndrome?


2004 I wakeboard & fell & hit my temple. The last thing i remember is swimming to my boat. The next thing I know I am on a boat with no land surrounding me for hours.[I was really on a lake with land visible for 15 minutes] I cant remember anything. I was questioning if i even wakeboard that day and how i had a towel around me and a wet vest on the floor. MRI came back fine, but the next 3 years of my life sucked. I had all of the emotional and cognitive symptoms found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-concussion_syndrome and headaches where I feel like my brain is too big for my skull. I have quit drinking because that messed with my head more and memory issues. I smoke marijuana daily, I heard it is used medically for PCS has anyone else heard of this? My short term memory has always been terrible since the accident. Just hit my head snowboarding last week. Another blackout. Can i really live my life like this nothing is getting better. What do i do what have others done?
For additional information I am a 20 year old male. I go to stonybrook university for computer science. This last semester my GPA increased when i quit drinking and started smoking. Up .4 to a 3.2. But any little bit of stress I get my PCS symptoms flair up and i lose my mind. Sometimes i go into these moods where im pissed off irritable hate everything, and when i come out of them, I look back at the reason i went into it, and it seems so stupid. And when i come out of the mood, i can't remember some things i have done when i was in the mood. Everything is blurry...
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I also have PCS -- I played Div. I women's ice hockey in college, and I got two concussions due to nasty collisions on the ice (I'm 5'3" and about 110 pounds, so I was always the smallest girl on the ice).

And those are just the two I know about -- there were other times where I got jarred pretty good and it rattled my head pretty good.

After college, I also got two more concussions in accidents.

Just hang in there. You learn to control it. For me, sunglasses help because I'm quite sensitive to bright lights.

I also have the short-term memory issues, so I write things down a lot. If someone thinks it's weird that I'm writing things down and asks me why I'm doing it, I just flat-out tell them that I have PCS and it affects my short-term memory.

I also am surrounded by good friends who have a pretty good grasp of what I'm going through, and are very patient and understanding. That's been a very big help!

If I were you, I'd stop the marijuana -- it may seem like it's helping, but it's not. It's not doing you any favors. In the long run, it's going to make things worse.

I have some of the emotional issues associated with PCS too, but over time I've learned to control them better. If I feel myself getting irritated or going through a mood swing, I just "put myself in time out" and try to remove myself from the situation until I feel more relaxed. Sometimes I end up tuning people out, but I pretty much know I'm doing it now and I can deal with it better, now that I know what's wrong with me.

You also have to be careful what sorts of activities you get involved in, because once you've had one or two concussions, you're much more susceptible to having more of them.

Part of my problem was that when I was playing ice hockey, I wouldn't let on that I had "gotten my bell rung" because I didn't want to get benched for good.

I wasn't recruited to play on the team; I was a walk-on. Nobody gave me much of a chance of making the team, but I made it. And I thought if got put out of action due to an injury -- especially a head injury -- I'd never get back in. So I played through it. Now, I wish I hadn't -- although I loved the game and still do.

So, stay active -- but you should stick with sports and activities where your risk of having a concussion is as low as possible. I'd love to lace up the skates and get into pick-up hockey or even a local rec league, but I just can't risk it. One more "head knock" and I could be in serious trouble.

I work out a lot, and in fact I'm a certified personal trainer. At the gym I see a lot of guys who play contact sports like hockey or football, and sometimes I talk to them about "bell ringers" and how they have to take care of themselves if they have one. I talk to them about PCS and how I've dealt with it, and how it's better if you don't get it in the first place.

Sorry, I know I'm rambling but, again, just hang in there -- you learn to live with it and as long as you stay positive, you know how to deal with the symptoms as they come up.

PM me anytime if you want to "talk."
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Has anybody got or had post concussion syndrome? help me??????


Has anybody got or had post concussion syndrome?
I have had this drama for about 11 months now, my head hit the end of a concrete gutter, i had all tests, ct, x-ray, no bleeding or anything unusall, apart from a little chunk of something in my nasal cavity which was shown up in the ct, docs thought it was sinus gunk, antibiotics for that-not sure it fixed things. i have tried a chiro-just gave me worse headaches?acupunture, little relief but not enough for thecost
I always got headaches now-all sorts of them, dull, heavy,ones that are so bad i need to die, no matter what kind it never leaves my head, dizyness all the time, blood is always thumping-pulsating through my head,feels like there is pressure under my eyes, i always feel the need to push on my eyes, i dont know what to do or where to head for an answer?
i read things about this can last for days, years maybe forever. I need to know if anybody has had this for a while and has overcome it, have they tried anything that helps
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I've had several concussions ~ very mild and extremely severe.

In most situations, I've only hit my head enough to make me dizzy, but in one, I was sleeping on the backseat of my mom's car and she drifted off to sleep and bumped a man at a red light. Didn't too a whole lot of damage to either car, but it knocked me off the seat onto the floor. My mother said I got out of the car, starting fussing at the man in front of us for hitting our car, and then I passed out for 8 hours and woke up in the hospital. I was also broad-sided one evening around 6:00 pm when a truck ran a red light, crossing over three lanes of traffic, speeding up in order to make the red light, and hit me in the driver's side door really hard. I had to be cut out of the car and I was taken to the hospital w/out any loss of consciousness, but I had several herniated discs in my neck. I had to have surgery to remove the damaged discs, they were fused together, and ever since that surgery, I have suffered from occipital neuralgia. My memory is very short term, I suffer from terrible headaches, around the base of my head and they radiate upwards behind my left eye, nausea and sometimes vomiting, similar to but not migraine headache symptoms. Sometimes, it is absolutely excrutiating to lay my head down at night because of the pain, the muscles that push against the nerves in my neck and at the base of my skull are often enough to keep me up at night and occasionally, it will hurt really badly during the day.
I've had every possible type of test run and the doctors said it is because my head has been bumped so many times, I've had a lot of concussions, and the neurological surgery to remove the discs from my neck are all contributing factors.
You might be able to find some relief by taking getting a really good Neurologist to prescribe Topimax, a head ache medication my teenage son took for really bad, migraine-type of headaches. In my case, my Spinal Reconstructionist referred me to a Pain Medicine Specialist who put me on Klonopin. It is typically given as a seizure medication, but it also works on many other types of neurological head pain. I also have Botox injections done about every three to four months to also help minimize the head pain from which I suffer. After my surgery, I started out with steroids and pain medicine injections at the base of my skull and all over my neck. I have since progressed to Botox at the base of my skull and trigger point injections all through my neck to help me deal with the pain I've been going through for the last fourteen years. My Pain Medicine Specialist also administers two unilateral epidural injections into each of my hips because of severe back pain that I also sustained as a lifetime result of that truck hitting my car.
I don't know if any of these suggestions will be of any help to you, but considering how many knocks and concussions I've had to my head, I'm glad that I can still find relief through injections and daily meds. You can try Spinal Reconstructionists, Neurologists, as well as, Neurosurgeons, and Orthopedic Surgeons that specialize in the neck and head area. I've seen them all. The very best Pain Medicine Specialist I've ever had is the doctor I have now who provides me with the best short term relief possible. Mine is a condition which is not curable by any operation, but is treatable and controlled with medications. I don't personally have anything at all against any chiropractors or acupuncturists, but neither one did me any good either. All they did was make my pain worse, too.
Now that two levels of my neck have been fused, I found out just over a year ago, that I need to have all but the C-1 level fused together. The C-1 is not to be messed with but can possibly be the culprit as to why you are having awful headaches. The problem with the C-1 is that there are so many motor nerves around the C-1
that doctors are afraid that if they mess up doing anything to the C-1 level, it can leave you crippled like Christopher Reeve was when he broke his neck beginning at the C-1 level. The C-1 level is almost always considered to be inoperable because of the many possible outcomes that can occur. That is why some of us are doomed to live the remainder of our lives on pain medication and have those periodic injections to help control the level of pain to make it bearable.  (+ info)

how long does post concussion syndrome last?


in january 2008, i was playing in one of my basketball games, fell, and hit my head on the floor and suffered a concussion. a few months later, i was told i have post concussion syndrome.
today, i still get terrible headaches, have memory and concentration problems, i'm very irritable all the time, and i get dizzy and light headed really easily.
does PCS usually last this long? or could there be something else wrong that i should go back to my doctor for? i've had an MRI and CT scans, neither of which showed anything, but i still don't feel normal. any suggestions?
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How Long Does Post-Concussion Syndrome Last?
For most people, concussion symptoms go away a few days to a few weeks after the injury. Half of all sufferers are symptom free within one month. In these cases, a post-concussion syndrome diagnosis is not likely to be applied.

Of those whose symptoms persist longer than a month, two-thirds recover within three months after the injury.

In the relatively few cases lasting longer then three months, recovery may occur within one year. If the symptoms continue beyond one year, they are often permanent.  (+ info)

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