[JaneLdn]

I put this in the new member section then realised it should probably have gone here, I'm not too with it a the moment!


Hi everyone,

Have been reading the advice on here so thought it would be a good idea to join and introduce myself

Am dealing with PCS symptoms a month after getting concussion. I managed to bang my head on a low ceiling at home (yes, it is a little embarrassing to admit this..!).

It's been difficult but today I am back at work on reduced hours and this feels like a major achievement. I'm really hoping this doesn't set me back as I seem to have almost-good days followed by extra bad ones....

Anyway, I have a question...

There seems to be some opinion out there (on the web) that there are pre-disposing psychological factors as to whether or not people get PCS, i.e. stress, tendency to depression etc. What do people think about this? When I first read it I was not impressed as I thought there is no way that something that feels this physically bad can have 'psychological' factors as part of its cause but thinking about this now I do fit the profile if I'm honest....And maybe this is one of those 'wake up' calls.....

I also found that GP's here seem to have little or no knowledge at all about PCS. At one point I was told that my CT scan was fine so I probably have a virus, how crazy is that?! Have people found much knowledge out there about PCS when trying to get help?

Jane

[Mark in Idaho]

JaneLdn,

Welcome to NeuroTalk. Sorry for your reason for being here.

I have hit my head on a low ceiling too. Not a difficult thing to do.

Regarding pre-disposing psychological conditions, I have never read anything about pre-existing psych conditions being a cause of or causing sensitivity to PCS. PCS will magnify any pre-existing conditions. For example, if someone had OCD before their concussion, then after the concussion, the OCD will be worse. Even simple personality traits are magnified by PCS. A weakness for depression will also be magnified.

PTSD can complicate a concussion. PTSD should be considered a psychiatric condition since it causes physiological changes in the brain. Psychological conditions just cause changes in though patterns.

I believe that some psychological conditions may cause PCS symptoms to be more pronounced. Like, OCD and other anxiety disorders, it can cause a person to overly dwell on their PCS symptoms.

The other problem is the 'professionals' who do not believe in concussion that did not include a loss of consciousness. They will try to diagnose the PCS symptoms as psychological because of their bias against concussion.
The psych community is often in this camp.

And, there are those who will try to diagnose concussion severity by their perceived ' intensity of impact to the head.' They again are without medical foundation. They will say, " Such a mild impact could never cause the symptoms you are having."

So, as you have noticed, many professionals are completely ignorant of the issues of concussion. Negative or clear imaging has not bearing on severity of concussion. The only value to CT or MRI is to rule out brain bleeds, etc. The only tests that can approximate severity of concussion are Neuro-Psychological Assessments and qEEG in the hands of a good specialist.

Thus the need for this forum. We are much better at helping ourselves than relying on doctors to help us. Been there. Done that. Spent thousands of dollars with doctors to very little benefit.

Regarding work, If you have bad days after good days at work, you need to lower your intensity and/or duration of work effort. Causing a relapse of symptoms means you have just undone any healing progress you may have made. The brain needs extended times without symptoms to really heal. Your focus should be to minimize anything that causes a return of symptoms.

The effort you put out at work may not even be the problem. It is likely that the sounds and visual stimuli at work combine to cause the overload. You may do better wearing foam ear plugs ate work. You can still hear voices but you will hear much less background or ambient sounds. Sunglasses may help too. Anything that reduces the stimulation to the brain will help.

Avoiding stress is the number one goal when trying to recover from PCS.

I hope this helps.

My best to you.

[JaneLdn]

Originally Posted by Mark in Idaho

JaneLdn,

Welcome to NeuroTalk. Sorry for your reason for being here.

I have hit my head on a low ceiling too. Not a difficult thing to do.

Regarding pre-disposing psychological conditions, I have never read anything about pre-existing psych conditions being a cause of or causing sensitivity to PCS. PCS will magnify any pre-existing conditions. For example, if someone had OCD before their concussion, then after the concussion, the OCD will be worse. Even simple personality traits are magnified by PCS. A weakness for depression will also be magnified.

PTSD can complicate a concussion. PTSD should be considered a psychiatric condition since it causes physiological changes in the brain. Psychological conditions just cause changes in though patterns.

I believe that some psychological conditions may cause PCS symptoms to be more pronounced. Like, OCD and other anxiety disorders, it can cause a person to overly dwell on their PCS symptoms.

The other problem is the 'professionals' who do not believe in concussion that did not include a loss of consciousness. They will try to diagnose the PCS symptoms as psychological because of their bias against concussion.
The psych community is often in this camp.

And, there are those who will try to diagnose concussion severity by their perceived ' intensity of impact to the head.' They again are without medical foundation. They will say, " Such a mild impact could never cause the symptoms you are having."

So, as you have noticed, many professionals are completely ignorant of the issues of concussion. Negative or clear imaging has not bearing on severity of concussion. The only value to CT or MRI is to rule out brain bleeds, etc. The only tests that can approximate severity of concussion are Neuro-Psychological Assessments and qEEG in the hands of a good specialist.

Thus the need for this forum. We are much better at helping ourselves than relying on doctors to help us. Been there. Done that. Spent thousands of dollars with doctors to very little benefit.

Regarding work, If you have bad days after good days at work, you need to lower your intensity and/or duration of work effort. Causing a relapse of symptoms means you have just undone any healing progress you may have made. The brain needs extended times without symptoms to really heal. Your focus should be to minimize anything that causes a return of symptoms.

The effort you put out at work may not even be the problem. It is likely that the sounds and visual stimuli at work combine to cause the overload. You may do better wearing foam ear plugs ate work. You can still hear voices but you will hear much less background or ambient sounds. Sunglasses may help too. Anything that reduces the stimulation to the brain will help.

Avoiding stress is the number one goal when trying to recover from PCS.

I hope this helps.

My best to you.

Hello Mark,

Thanks for your reply and the helpful info. What I read suggested that following a concussion, PCS symptoms are more likely to actually develop in people who have been under stress, or in those who have a tendency towards being depressed...so being on the analytical side I started wondering!

From my little experience of it can totally see what you mean about it magnifying things - have had anxiety attacks, and am often tearful over trivial things. Also do fixate a bit on my symptoms but partly because they have been so strange and overwhelming. It was a relief to find this forum.

It's surprising that medical professionals have so little knowledge about this - people have been having concussions for quite a while! My dealings with them so far could be summed up by the phrase "it's not serious". And of course it's not....but the scary symptoms are.

Dealing with work is going to be a see-how-it-goes thing I think.

Thanks again,
Jane

[Dmom3005]

Jane
I responded to you in the new member area. So I'll let you read my response to your question there.

About the work, for many years I worked at jobs I liked but didn't love.

Now I love my job but there are still days its hard to get up and do what
I need to do. So yes its a struggle.

Donna

[Mark in Idaho]

The problem with PCS and the medical profession is two fold.

First, there are not any standard ways to diagnose and differentiate from other causes. There are not imaging studies, MRI, CT, etc that will show the damage.

Second, there is not a lot that the medical professionals can do that is hands on or involves supporting Big Pharma.

Add to that the many biases against concussion such as, if you did not lose consciousness, you did not suffer a concussion, etc and the medical profession is not much use to those of us with PCS.

So, we help each other.

My best to you.

[JaneLdn]

Well, I will certainly post info. about anything at all that helps me in case it helps someone else. Everyone is different but sometimes you can come across one little thing that makes a difference...

[Concussed Scientist]

Hi Jane,

Here's the way I see it.

So we are sitting around minding our own business and a madman comes in and hits us all of the foot with a hammer. We all get the same amount of tissue damage.

So, some of us burst into tears. In others the fight or flight response takes over and they try to tackle this crazy guy and won't think about it till later. Perhaps some of us will be terrified and have some sort of neurotic episode.

We are all different. Perhaps we are different psycholigically and that will influence how we react.

But (here is the important point)
We all have been hurt by being whacked on the foot with a hammer (in my illustration). We all have tissue damage. That isn't psychological.

Perhaps how we react shows something of our personalities but having post-concussion symptoms is due, as far as I'm concerned, to something like being whacked with a hammer - nothing to do with psychological predisposition.

That's why I called it a crock. (Good American expression, even though I am not American.)

Apparently more women than men have PCS, so some people might jump to the conclusion that it must be because women are more psycholigically predisposed to it, perhaps because of hormones or something. No one seems to think of simple physical explanations, like "woman have smaller heads", or should I say woman are predisposed to having a lesser head size. Might that have something to do with it? There are biochemical differences also. The pop psychology card is such an easy one to play. It's like "stress". If you can't figure out what the problem is, then just call it "stress", better than admitting that you just don't know.

I think that this psycholigical thing can be just blaming the victim.

So after that David Mitchell type rant: Welcome to the thread.

(I could really imagine him saying that. I am also British, so you must know who he is. Probably not known in the States.)

Wishing you all the best to get well again soon.

Concussed Scientist

Originally Posted by JaneLdn

I put this in the new member section then realised it should probably have gone here, I'm not too with it a the moment!


Hi everyone,

Have been reading the advice on here so thought it would be a good idea to join and introduce myself

Am dealing with PCS symptoms a month after getting concussion. I managed to bang my head on a low ceiling at home (yes, it is a little embarrassing to admit this..!).

It's been difficult but today I am back at work on reduced hours and this feels like a major achievement. I'm really hoping this doesn't set me back as I seem to have almost-good days followed by extra bad ones....

Anyway, I have a question...

There seems to be some opinion out there (on the web) that there are pre-disposing psychological factors as to whether or not people get PCS, i.e. stress, tendency to depression etc. What do people think about this? When I first read it I was not impressed as I thought there is no way that something that feels this physically bad can have 'psychological' factors as part of its cause but thinking about this now I do fit the profile if I'm honest....And maybe this is one of those 'wake up' calls.....

I also found that GP's here seem to have little or no knowledge at all about PCS. At one point I was told that my CT scan was fine so I probably have a virus, how crazy is that?! Have people found much knowledge out there about PCS when trying to get help?

Jane

[Mark in Idaho]

Concussed,

One of the reasons women have more problems with concussion has to do with progesterone. During the low or even zero progesterone part of the monthly cycle, just after the period, the brain is less tolearnt of injury. progesterone is a neuro-protectant. It is believed this function is to protect the early neuro-development of a newly conceived embryo.

The fact that women are more emotional, the stress from emotional burdens can also present a problem. Stress is a great PCS magnifier. Lowering stress is the first step in trying to let the brain heal.

[JaneLdn]

Hi there C.S

Yes, I get irritated when I read about PCS being 'psychological' and due to stress blah blah. How can they be sure of that given the little that is known about the brain?

The impression I have, from my own experience, is that it's more of a physiological thing - the anxiety attacks and tearful episodes I get come out of the blue in a sudden and intense sort of way. Plus you are going to be depressed at some point dealing with it because it's so crap. Nothing is black and white though is it, the brain is such a complex thing.

David Mitchell type rants welcome any time, I need a good laugh.