My daughter dictated the post below to me:

I have had a number of concussions over the last year and a half and with each new concussion, my concussion threshold seems to get lower and lower. I asked a neurologist about this, and she told me that she doesn’t think that concussion threshold lowers at all, but she had no explanation for what I was experiencing. I wanted to know if anyone else has experienced the same thing. Does your concussion threshold ever return to normal? How long does it take? Are there ways to raise your concussion threshold or to make the healing process go faster?

Obviously, I have been doing everything I can to avoid minor head bumps, but they cannot always be avoided. I am wondering if there is anything you can do to minimize the risk of damage after a head bump. I have a couple of ideas I would like to share.

Idea number one: I know that it is theorized that brain damage from concussion is due to excitotoxicity caused by excess glutamate in the brain. I wonder if there is any way to reduce levels of glutamate in your brain, so I asked my father to research this for me. He only found one thing – there is a drug called NAC that converts glutamate to glutathione. I don’t know if glutathione is any safer for you than glutamate, but I tried taking NAC (N-Acetyl L Cysteine) after my last couple of head bumps, and I am fairly certain it did absolutely nothing. Upon further research, my father found that there is little evidence that NAC can cross the blood-brain barrier. If there were a way to make this drug cross the blood-brain barrier, then perhaps it could help us, or perhaps there is another drug that can absorb excess glutamate in the brain.

Idea number two: Is it possible that an anticonvulsant could help prevent excitotoxic damage by inhibiting neurons from firing? If anticonvulsants can prevent seizures, then I don’t see why this wouldn’t be possible. However, so many people with PCS take anticonvulsants that if they did anything to raise the concussion threshold, I feel like we would all know about it by now. So my question to those of you who take anticonvulsants is whether you have noticed any effect whatsoever on your concussion threshold or on the amount of damage a concussion causes.

These are some of my ideas. I would love to hear if anyone else has any others.