Mark,
thank you so much for your response and questions.
1. Yes - it definitely upset and startled me. Minor soreness where the impact was. and yes - given how many I've had, my first thoughts are always "I can't believe this happened again", "how long will it take to feel better" and "what might happen long-term". In the immediate aftermath, I felt stunned, and sat for about a minute before I went ahead with what I was doing. Your comment about anxiety is interesting -that could be playing a big role for me, as I have those issues.
2. I don't think I mentioned cte specifically, but I asked him if I was at risk for any long term issues from multiple concussions. My understanding is that a concussion is a head injury where there's some kind of altered state of consciousness for a short time immediately after - feeling stunned, dazed or disoriented. Is this accurate?
Most of mine have come over the last 13 years (I'm 55) and have involved bumping my head into something I thought I had cleared (car door, clothesline pipe, playground apparatus when with my nephews) or misjudging how close something was to my head. One was from a minor car accident (got rear-ended and hit the head rest). For many of these, I've been able to go on with whatever I was doing even while feeling a bit off. A day or so after the injury is when symptoms settle in for me - there's a week or so of mental fatigue, low tolerance for screen time, not feeling quite like myself, and mild headaches. Chiropractic care and acupuncture have been very helpful.