Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark in Idaho
skygray,
Welcome to NeuroTalk. Sorry to hear of your injury. My very first concussion was from falling down a flight of hardwood stairs. I did great until the landing, then thunk. Goose egg and all.
The struggles you describe are all classic Post Concussion Syndrome. It does not sound like you have any treatable symptoms since you are not having head aches or dizziness. The cognitive struggles just take time. Trying to push through will only cause fatigue and delay recovery. You need cognitive rest. Not sleep except you do need good sleep each night.
You need rest from mental challenges. You may need rest from auditory and visual stimulation. Most do. It sounds like you overload with visual and auditory stimulation, films, conversations etc. This is common and you need a break from it. A conversation with a single person in a quiet area is likely all you can tolerate.
So you can understand this, the brain has an important task at filtering your experience. With PCS, that filter is often not functioning and all stimulation passes to the brain and it is overloaded trying to process it. The only solution is to moderate that stimulation so the brain has time to heal.
It would be good to read the Vitamins sticky at the top. It has some good links to check out when you have time.
Please feel free to ask or tell us anything. We are here to help.
My best to you.
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As an educator, there's no way to rest from mental challenges, but at least it's the summer. I'm glad to hear that this is normal. I started really wondering because the neurologist threw antidepressants at me, and when I was first in the hospital, no one mentioned any possibility of further problems. They said they were happy I had not fractured my skull, which they thought due to how seriously out of it I was. It seemed like once they noticed my skull was not fractured, they just ignored me and discharged me.
This is not my first concussion but my second. The first was mild, and I felt better by the next day. I was knocked out briefly that time by a piece of furniture being moved into a new house. I didn't go to the hospital until the next day due to headaches. They said I was fine and sent me home. I was tired that day, but the next day, I was 100%
The neurologist said I was just depressed, which is crazy because my life has otherwise never been better. I have felt easily overwhelmed though, which I think is why I don't want to go anywhere much. It's exhausting. I feel sensitive to things, more than usual, to stimulus around me. I have trouble driving because I feel more motion sensitive than usual. I also feel embarrassed because I lose track of what people are saying.
I forgot to mention! Not meant to be funny though… I've had serious memory problems as well, and so I am constantly struggling to find words, which as a teacher is not a good thing at all. I keep forgetting what I'm saying mid-sentence and what just happened earlier in the day. Just short-term memory stuff, but it's very, very obvious to me.
Thanks for your support. I'm glad to even found out about post-concussion syndrome and will take a look at the vitamins stuff, although I'm not a big fan of vitamins and don't tend to believe in many alternative treatments. I can't promise mental rest though because I teach, and you have to be mentally active constantly. I have 150 students next semester, from 8-3 every day, and at home, I grade non-stop.
What are good summer activities for mental relaxation?
Did I strain myself going back to work too soon too, I wonder? I think that may have been it. I was still very woozy and drowsy when I returned to work out of necessity, and I've had problems non-stop since then.