I understand that some people do have a real fear of getting another concussion. which can give them a dose of adrenaline, and they feel weird for a couple of hours. I also understand that neck injuries can cause discomfort and other symptoms with quick head movement.

I would describe what I have as "motion sensitivity", and it is neither of those things. I know I'm not the only one because I have seen others describe this in detail. I've gone to great lengths to figure this out. I've now had three neurologists tell me that I'm having migraine attacks (with a primary symptom of dizziness--not headache, sometimes referred to as vestibular migraine).

The first neurologist to give me that diagnosis is the lead concussion consultant for the NBA and NHL. He also does work for the NFL and sees primarily professional athletes. He is known as a global leader in the field. I saw him on Skype because he is not in my state, and it was very expensive because he is out of my network. He said he sees what I have often, and its common for other doctors to have misdiagnosed it as either concussion or anxiety. He told me that the exaggeration of motion that I feel is a sensory sensitivity (just like light or sound sensitivities, but slightly less common and more difficult for people to describe). He said extreme sensory sensitivities are kind of the hallmark of migraine.

He told me that it's common, for example, for him to see a hockey player with a history of head injury and have them report that they fell on their butt on the ice and now have the same symptoms that they get after a concussion. Falling on your butt on ice should not generate enough force to cause a concussion. The nerve cells in your brain need to be physically stretched enough to open mechanical gates that allow ions to move into the cells and cause an energy crisis (which is all a concussion is). Migraine, on the other hand, is often triggered by a sensory overload. Someone who is sensitive to light gets triggered on a sunny day, someone who is sensitive to sound gets triggered at a rock concert, and someone who is sensitive to motion gets triggered by a sudden change of velocity (commonly the sudden stop that occurs when you fall and hit the ground).

This neurologist told me (though I think there is still some dispute in the field over the exact mechanisms of migraine) that all of your sensory inputs run through your thalamus. He told me to think of the thalamus as a series of gain switches--one for each sensory input signal. Your brain has the ability to adjust the intensity of each signal before it reaches the cerebral cortex. If you are old and some of your sensory organs are deteriorating, for example, your brain can turn the volume up. What happens in migraine is that some of these inputs have the gain switch turned up high and stuck there.

He told me that this can sometimes slowly correct itself over time or with PT, but people like me often require medication. There are a number of different medications used to prevent migraine. All were developed for other conditions, and they all mess nerve signal transmission in some way. The meds, he told me, somehow disrupt things, allowing those gain switches to be reset. This, in turn, raises the threshold for causing a new migraine episode and also makes your fail life more tolerable.

I found it super interesting when someone posted that this symptom improved for them after correcting a hormone deficiency, as changes in hormone levels is one of the main things that can cause migraine levels to wax and wain.