Hi- my name is Kasey. I was diagnosed with post concussion syndrome about 4 months ago. I’ve had about 40 loss of consciousness events from blows to the head in my 31 years of life, but the two most recent have really taken me out of things. The first happened at work- I stood up in a low attic doorway while doing electrical work. The second happened 8 days later when my business partner and housemate drunkenly attacked me. I think because of the traumatic nature of the second concussion, I am having a particularly difficult time managing stress. I had to move out and find new work in the middle of winter at 8800 ft, all the while fearing for my safety and operating at a much slower and less intelligent feeling capacity.

Once I found new work, I over did and launched myself into the worst symptoms I’ve ever dealt with. That caused me to lose my housing and be briefly homeless.. at the time i was so sensitive to light and sound that I was barely able to interact with anyone enough to get help. Since then I have been sleeping on a sofa but in exchange a certain amount of farm help, and it’s hard to get anyone to understand that some days I genuinely cannot deal with any stimuli - even the sound of a purring cat accross the room can send me over the edge.

My main question pertains to hypnagogic twitches. Is it possible to have them sometimes hundreds of times a day, in a manner so violent that it pulls ribs out of alignment? Sometimes a ‘twitch’ is more like a 30-45 second long total tensing of my core muscles, and occasionally my arms and or legs. Researching this symptom is difficult, as there doesn’t seem to be much discussed middle ground between hypnagogic jerks and tonic seizures. Tonic seizures as defined by the epilepsy foundation most closely resemble my symptoms; however they are rare if not unheard of in adults that have not previously experienced them, and the Eeg I had came out normal.

I’m curious if others have dealt with this, have any tips etc. My main concern is that these twitches might be leading up to a more intense seizure, as I experienced partial complex seizures for about a year after getting 7 sports related concussions in one year. Those came about unexpectedly, twice causing me to hit my head quite hard on the ground when I lost consciousness. I’m afraid another blow to the head like that could be very damaging.. so if anyone who reads this has had a history of concussion induced partial complex seizures, I’m wondering if you have ever had a relapse in symptoms that began with intense twitching.

My second question is related to rest. I just read through several threads that mentioned that too much rest can be bad. I spent the first 2 months resting in the dark as frequently as possible, felt decent (but mostly was out of savings and didn’t want to lose my housing), attempted to return to work, (I’m a carpenter)and I built a 20x20 room with dropped ceiling alone in a week, then the day after I finished I relapsed hard into some of the most terrible symptoms I’ve ever felt. Now, obviously, I didn’t go about things correct there, but I’ve had a really hard time balancing how much rest or activity to engage in.

Lately I haven’t had much of a choice but to be in a cycle of doing too much at once to try and catch up from needing to rest for days from the last time I did too much... but maybe I’m going about it wrong? Is it bad to sleep for like 2 days straight if your body seems to want it? Perhaps I should be forcing myself to be more active on days where I feel extreme fatigue? When I try to be active on my ‘tired’ days I usually find myself cranky and emotional and unable to do much other than sit and stare off, occasionally twitching.

Okay, so i know I had other questions, but I can’t think. I’m not proofreading this, as I don’t have the energy, so my apologies if it’s a bit rambling.