Lance,

You should be scared. You are entering a career that puts high demand on cognitive processing. You should look at activities that risk a head impact as possibly career ending.

You have been operating with false information about concussions. None of your concussions resolved complete. Only the most obvious symptoms resolved. Headaches are only one of many concussion symptoms. If you had a headache for 2 or 3 days, that was a relatively serious trauma to your brain. Many concussions never have any headache at all. Most of mine did not.

Look up the term half-life or exponential decay. Consider every concussion has a timeline similar to a half life. Now, consider the obvious symptoms create that half life term but with concussions, that term is more like a 10th life or 1/4 life. When you think you have recovered, your brain has only recovered by 1/10th to 1/4th. It is took 2 weeks for that first period and 1/10th is amount of recovery; at 4 weeks you brain has healed 1.9/10th (1/10th plus 10% of the remainder); at 6 weeks, your brain has healed 2.7/10ths; at 8 weeks, your brain has healed 3.3/10ths; at 12 weeks, your brain has healed 3.97/10ths; at 14 weeks, your brain has healed 4.6/10ths.

I hope that as an engineer, you can understand that healing from each impact is a long declining process with overlap that accumulates.

Whether you develop CTE, nobody can say. You may just lose some cognitive functions and remain stable. The CTE scientists are still mystified by how some develop CTE and others suffer many more concussions and do not develop CTE.

I have suffered more than 14 concussions since 1965. My cognitive decline has been in steps with each impact. A concussion at 15 and another at 19 caused serious academiccognitive challenges. At 66, age appears to be causing some decline. I was stable for the years from 2000-2013 after a trauma in 2000.

With the declines I experienced in my earlier years, I was able to practice cognitive focus and regained many skills. I like to do mental calculations. I have to put more effort into focusing and ignoring distractions. I don't do it as well as I used to but when I was in my teens and early 20, I could practice cognitive focus skills and regain them. I had to do mental math at my McDonald's job because we did not have computer or similar 'add up the sale' registers.

So, change your risk behavior. Read the Vitamins sticky at the top. Learn how to get your brain to focus. Learn how to practice brain health. Learn how to moderate stress, including physical, nutritional, emotional, and cognitive. Stress will be your enemy. The injured brain will manifest more struggles during times of stress.

Alcohol and other mind modifying substances need to be carefully considered. A single serving of alcohol per day/event is considered a limit.

Sleep, meaning quality sleep, not necessarily quantity sleep, will be important. Sleep at consistently regular hours. Sleeping in does not make up for missed sleep for a stressed brain.

Feel free to tell us more about the specific struggles you may have.