Dealing with PCS for over 1 year. Headaches are exacerbated with mental activity and physical exercise

MD said not to do inversions like with yoga. I have been trying to find research on this but cannot. Does anyone have any experience on this?

yogaflow1,

Inversions increase the blood pressure to the head and brain. The concussed brain sometimes loses or reduces its ability to maintain proper blood pressure.

If you get headaches from yoga, you should stop doing yoga or do a less stressful yoga. Your body knows if inversions or exercise is not good by giving you a headache. Listen to your body.

If you have concerns about post concussion headaches and such, you should post you questions in the TBI/PCS forum. http://www.neurotalk.org/forum92/

I have a good background in yoga...I started after my TBI.....Not many classes have any inversions, that is when you are getting pretty darn good past intermediate levels.....No class forces anyone past what they can do or against any DR.s orders...
When ever I have a new instructor I give them a heads up of my problems!...Its the best overall thing I have done for myself....Ive even thought about teaching at some point, but my memory is very bad.
I started with all kinds of Hatha yoga, my passion is Kundalini yoga.
You will meet some wonderful grounded people in yoga.
I use it to stay grounded, keep depression at bay, and even added flexibility to an aging retired construction worker....

Namaste

Hi yogaflow01,

I had the same type of concussion as you did a few yrs. ago and I had to go to pain management once a week for months and that helped a little but I still had wicked headaches that lasted for close to a yr. My neurosurgeon told me the reason the headaches were lasting is because of the swelling on the brain do to the concussion along with possible bleeding in the brain. If you haven't had that checked out make sure you have a fmri done to be sure you aren't bleeding.
Cut back on the caffeine, starch foods and carbs because all of these will cause more excitement in the brain and if you at using a cell phone each day that can cause more electrical activity in the brain which will also cause the brain to be more active so cut back on that also.

I wish you the best of luck and May God Bless You!

Sue