NE789,

Welcome to NeuroTalk.

What you are experiencing is quite common. Many who have had a concussion develop anxiety about head contacts. The CTE movie and focus has a lot of people anxious.

At this point in your life, you cannot change what has already happened. The best you can do is treat your brain the best you can with risk avoidance, anxiety avoidance and nutritional support. Anxiety actually makes your risk greater because it can cause your reactions and coordination to be affected.

The recent tap was just that. Try to get over it. Unless you suffer a bell ringer concussion or return to risky activities, I bet you have already experienced 95% of the trauma to your head that you will experience in your lifetime. Those remaining 5% are not avoidable. Bumping a headboard, door jamb, cabinet, child's head, etc are unavoidable. Hits happen.

There are few sports that truly create a risk. Football, rugby, hockey, skateboarding and such are risky. Soccer, basketball and some other sports can be done is less risky ways. No heading in soccer. No hard body contact in basketball. Wear a helmet when snowboarding and avoid snowboarding on hardpacked snow. If the snow is so hard it is difficult to get an edge, you can slip out and hit your helmet on that hardpack. If the snow is softer, you can get an edge and risk less slipping out and falling and when you do fall, the snow has give that greatly reduces the impact forces.

So, you can choose to moderate risk without giving up an active life.

The brain can be overwhelming in its response to the power of suggestion, especially if anxiety is at play. If you look for a symptom, chances are you will think you are experiencing that symptom. I routinely notice a headache when I think about concussion symptoms. Headaches have been my chronic concussion symptom. As soon as I am distracted away, the headache fades away.

So, avoid the "Do I feel dizzy ? Do I have a headache ?" and don't even get started with the "Was that bump a concussion ?" You will not have to ask yourself if a bump is a concussion. The immediate symptoms will tell you before you ask. The immediate disorientation for 10 to 30 seconds will be obvious. The need to stop to clear your head and get you balance or focus will be obvious.

But, when you experience an immediately symptomatic concussion, relax, take a breath and calm yourself. You cannot change what happened but you can choose to make it worse by getting all wrapped up in anxiety. Anxiety causes a rush of bad chemistry in the brain that is not helpful.

Based on my experience of just reducing known risks but living my life, I have suffered 14 concussions in 53 years. That's one ever 4 years. Most were very mild with symptoms that only lasted a minute or so with no lasting symptoms. Only 4 had lasting symptoms. If anything, I might respond with, "Ouch, I'm probably going to pay for that." Then, I just go on with life. If I do 'pay' for that, there is not much I can do except moderate the symptom, usually take ibuprofen of Tylenol for a day or two.

The most important part of your question is quite simple. You need to take whatever steps you need to learn to moderate your anxiety. I was talking with a Neuro Psychologist this past Thursday about the need for resources and protocols to help people in your situation let go of their head bump anxiety. If you let this anxiety get control, it will mess up your life far more than CTE will.

So, take a step back and look at the risks and bumps from a logical perspective. It takes about 60 G's to suffer a concussion. Such a hard hand slap would result in bruising to your face or scalp and the slapper's hand. Such a slug would likely result in a broken hand/boxer's break where the metatarsals (finger bones in the palm) get compression fractures.

These less than concussive impacts the CTE reports mention are called sub-concussive impacts and they still manifest a sense of being hit. It takes hundreds of them during a sport season to cause damage. Think of full contact football practice and games. It is still worthwhile to avoid these contacts because one cannot play those contact sports in a way where you only suffer sub-concussive impacts without risking full concussion impacts.

So, with just some reasonable risk reducing standards and help with reducing anxiety, you will be fine.

My best to you.