PCSLearner,

The brain is not like the rest of the body, especially bones, ligaments, tendons and muscles. The later all become stronger through strain.

The research I have found suggests that relapses of symptoms is counter to the brain healing or becoming accommodated to the injury. Each relapse (decompensation in medical terms) prevents any healing during the recovery from the decomp.

Maybe this example will explain what I think they meant in their reports.

If a healthy uninjured brain is 10

A specific subject's injured brain is at 3

A realistic goal of healing may be to get to 8.

If every time the subject gets to 6 they over stress their brain back to a 4, they will spend most of their time in a roller coaster existence between 4 and 6.

The goal should be to spend as much time at 6 as possible so that healing to 7 is possible. As healing levels increase, the amount of time it may take to get to the next level of healing may be much more than the previous level.

Does this make sense to you?

I tried to continue to work after my injury in 2001. It required my wife's help. But after each week of intense work, I would crash for two weeks. I was such a mess that I was unable to get the claim forms properly filled out to get a disability Work Comp claim submitted.

When I finally realized that I needed to stop working, after some time, I became much more capable of getting the claim forms filled out properly. But, by this time, I had let too much time pass and had an uphill battle.

Now, I have much fewer decomps events and my high function level is much better. I still have serious memory problems but my neuro says it is because of my age and the number of previous concussions. I occasionally have a decomp that lasts a few days. In hind sight, I cam see what I did to trigger the decomp.

Now, my wife helps by reminding me of the risk of overdoing it. She also is good at recognizing when I am getting to my limit. She lives with me soshe would rather I miss an event that I decomp and she has to put up with me.

I did not understand the decomps when I was a teen. I just became symptomatic and others attributed it to a behavioral issue. I decomped during the Connecticut State Cross Country Finals due to being overwhelmed by the chaos of the crowd of runners. I finished about 12 seconds off the first place but was 3 seconds ahead of a runner who I had previously beat by 26 seconds.

I could not figure out why I could not get my head into the race. Only in the past ten years did I realize that I had decomped. I still remember the feeling of bewilderment or confusion I felt while running the race. I likely should have bee the State Champion.

I can now look back at the times where I grossly underperformed. It might have been in competition or in decision making. In hind-sight, I can see that I was seriously missing some of my faculties. Learning how to recognize the bad times and limit exposure is the most valuable skill. learning to avoid over doing it is almost as important.

Hope this helps.