vinman,

Your doctor friend had no medical basis for his comments. There is no way to predict the time frame for recovery. There also are no ways to speed up recovery other than to keep stress to a minimum and rest and good nutrition to a maximum. Each injury is specific to that person and can only be compared statistically. There are statistical probabilities but that is all. The great majority of concussions do not cause symptoms beyond the first few days. Those that last longer have time spans that defy logical assessment.

Remember that statistic are mean. The statistics say that vaccines save lives. But, those statistics are meaningless to those who lose a loved one to the fatal consequences of a vaccine.

The crossover symptoms between whiplash and concussion make it very difficult to prognose with any sense of accuracy. Tendon, ligament, cartilage and other soft tissue injuries can take long times to heal with may complex interactions.

There are two schools of thought regarding soft tissue injuries that do not require or respond to surgery. The most common is to heal through range of motion, stretching, and strengthening therapies. This can take quite some time as it can be two steps forward and one step back.

The other is rest the tissue until it has healed, then work to recover the range of motion and strength. This takes a lot of patience and discipline. I have had more luck with the second. Some injuries only heal with the second. The brain only recovers by the second process. Stressing it only prolongs the healing process.

Physical Therapists tend to follow the first process. They also tend to get impatient if they do not see progress. This ends up putting an uncomfortable burden on the patient, in my experience.