Welcome to NeuroTalk and the PCS forum.

Where do I begin???

Muddyriver,

You are likely suffering from Multiple Impact Syndrome. With each additional concussion, the damage you do to your brain gets much worse. Do some research about the NFL and concussions. They are struggling to find a safe way to keep players playing without destroying the rest of their lives.

The impact of a concussion may be temporary, but the symptoms are not necessarily temporary. Many symptoms do not even manifest the first few days. Some symptoms will not show up until weeks later. The brain is very slow to heal and also slow to respond to the injuries. The alcohol is contra-indicated. Light alcohol is OK but do not get drunk or even buzzed.

You have likely developed a brain that is much more sensitive to impacts than it was before. Rotational impacts are often the worse. There is far more shearing or tearing action in a rotational impact than in a direct impact. A boxer can be easily knocked out with a round-house to the jaw.

You need to understand that the brain does not behave like muscles do. Muscles can be challenged while they are healing without serious damage. The brain needs rest to heal. Very light exercise to keep blood flowing throughout the body is helpful but it can easily be overdone.

You need to learn to read your own brain. There are signs that it is getting too much strain. If you get a starry eyes feeling, you have gone to far. Note how much effort you were putting out. Next time, stop short of that level of effort. If you pay attention to all of the symptoms you feel when you relapse, watch for them when you exercise.

Exercise that causes an adrenaline rush is probably going to cause problems. Treat your brain like an injured body part. If you have muscle cramps, you adjust your nutrition. Same goes for the brain. It needs B vitamins, and a whole host of other nutrients to heal.

You may have long term to permanent personality changes. This is common with PCS. It will help if you identify where you are now and try to learn to accept the new you. Many PCS subjects develop problems with emotional/anger outbursts. Friends and family need to understand this. They can then help you learn to adapt to the outburst triggers.

It is great to hope for a full recovery but is helps to accept the here and now and try to move forward. Let us know how you are doing. You two appear to be new to the concussion experience. There are many here with long histories of concussions.

btw, You guys can help us out by limiting paragraphs to six lines or so. Many of us have visual struggles that make it hard to find the start of the next line when the paragraph gets too long.