Mark I just spent a lot of money on an appointment at this super fancy concussion clinic. They essentially told me the exact same thing you've been telling me in the past weeks except they charge 250$ for a session lol. I must say your knowledge on the topic is very up credible and up to date and this website is very lucky to have you to guide its members.

For anyone curious the doctor told me various things but three things stand out to me as possibly helpful to others on here.

1. Anxiety plays a huge factor in concussion recovery. They said in many people the brain is mostly recovered from the initial injury but the anxiety alone and the constant desire to track and monitor symptoms makes pcs last much longer than it should. She also said anxiety puts a lot of stress on the brain and slows down healing.

2. Minor things like the jarring from walking, bumby car rides, small head bumps or any other minor thing like that that triggers symptoms is not actually causing damage to the brain even if they trigger symptoms. She said anxiety again can play a big part in prolonging these relapses of symptoms. Also the only thing that could cause more damage would be something like a hard collision or impact when partaking in a sporting event or something like a car crash. Basically if there's no hard impact to the head or violent collision of the body from an external force, it's not enough to cause damage.

3. On the topic of cte, she said its really only a significant risk in people like professional athletes who suffer continuous impacts every week for years on end or people who suffer many bad concussions on top of each other without giving the brain a chance to heal much at all. She also said this topic is getting sensationalized in the media a lot recently and that it's not as common as people make it seem and that the majority of even professional athletes go on to live normal lives with no significant issues after they're playing careers are over. I guess cte is still something I worry since I played hockey my whole life but, besides last year, the significant impacts I received were pretty far and few between so I'll try not to worry about it too much for now.