Hey all, just reading some of the threads and I've seen some awesome responses, but I figured I'd just post my exact situation and see if there's and specific feedback....so, here goes!!
History: I'm 34, played hockey my whole life...in my 12-16 age range I would guess I suffered 3-4 concussions. Back then though it was not regarded as anything other than "getting your bell rung". Since then I may have had the odd smack to the head but nothing significant.
July 20th 2014 (15 weeks ago): I sustained a significant blow to the crown of my head (not knocked unconscious). I was a bit woozy getting up and felt a bit off the rest of the day. The next couple days I felt fine. I play hockey 3-4 times a week (non-contact hockey, but accidents happen)....so 3 days after this blow to the head I went to play hockey for 1.5hrs (again, still feeling fine). Felt fine the whole time...the next day I felt HORRIBLE. Major headache, super unbalanced and dizzy. Was like that for a couple of days so I went to the doc and she's like "oh you definitely have sustained a concussion"
Weeks 1-5 following concussion: I did almost NOTHING...no work, no video games, almost no tv, I followed the protocol for concussion recovery pretty well. I started feeling better after 4-5 weeks and started light exercise again. Didn't have a game plan and did walking but stupidly played some tennis, and a LIGHT game of ball hockey. Anyways, this sent me back into a brutal relapse and the symptoms came back worse than before!
Weeks 6-13 following concussion: Again, literally did nothing other than sit on my couch, sleep and listen to my tv. Limited my life better than I think most could. Symptoms were very off/on throughout that time....but towards week 13 I start feeling better!
Weeks 14-15: I feel A LOT better and the symptoms are gone. All last week I was doing 5min of walking 3x a day...and this week was doing it 10min 3x a day (and even did some things around the house and such that caused me to sweat pretty good, and even shot the hockey ball around [no game playing] for 10-15min). I still feel good!!! Ive been seeing my doc every week-10days since this has happened. Now she's saying to slowly amp up the exercise durations with walking and bike riding.....BUT what I didn't like was she said I can't return to hockey (and Im assuming other eye/hand activities like video gaming etc) until Late Dec/Early Jan at the earliest.
So, question is.....is she being overly pre-cautious? She was saying you have to take as much time "post-feeling good" as it took to get to that point in the healing process. So a few more months. But, a lot of what I read I don't see that much time needed from doing light exercise to playing a sport again. Should I question this program she has me on??
Thanks!