Kelly-

First of all, I"m glad you found us here. I've only been blogging and aware of this site for about two weeks. Within those two weeks, I've found just finding out there are other people out there going through the same thing and are able to relate has been given me such a feeling of hope/understanding. It's been a GREAT support system.

I completely understand where you are coming from- you don't want to have another year like this, because like you- i've missed my entire season. Aside from being out of playing, I've been out mentally/socially as well. As far as the MRI/CT Scan- there not really worth pushing to get. As hockey mentioned, nothing ever shows up, which for me, left me feeling helpless. My symptoms have been fogginess, severe headaches (the latest is that I get a pounding headache from talking to much, and to much noise) and neck and back pain. I also have this sensation like there's some pressure in my head.

After five months my parents were upset about how things were being handled- the doctors here decided to put me back on "cognitive rest" because I wasn't getting better. My coaches reprimended me for "over doing it" in the classroom and were "disappointed" that I hadn't done something about school earlier in the semester. I went home for a couple of weeks and saw some drs. at home who introduced me to the study done in Buffalo. I came back to school and took some incompletes in some of my courses and tried to convince the doctors here to implement the program.

After a month they finally agreed to let me start gradual exercise. It's been a week now and I've biked three times. They wanted to do cardio every other day to start. I to have bad neck and back pain, which according to the team osteopath my trapezies muscle has been spasming for so long that its causing this pain. Anyways, here is the link to the buffalo study. There has also been a study done in Montreal using similiar protocol to address the same issue of PCS in adolescents.

http://journals.lww.com/cjsportsmed/...reshold.4.aspx

It's some fascinating stuff. After reading this, I thought that maybe there is hope for me to get better and one day return to play. But for the mean time, I'm just focusing on getting better. THEN i'll think about returning to play. I just don't know anymore. I want SO badly to return next year, have the senior year I didn't get to and play with my best friends. The best advice I can give you is to take it a day at time. When I go home later I'll look into the who wrote that Montreal Study and I'll post the link.

Also, I emailed the director of the concussion clinic at Buffalo. His email adress is leddy@buffalo.edu. He won't be back until April 26th.

Hang in there, I know how freaking frustrating this is. But isn't it great to know that there are people who can relate to you? Even if they are people you've met on the internet!

Erica