About six weeks or so ago, my mother suffered a concussion when she banged her head on a kitchen cupboard door. When it first happened, she felt OK, and it took a couple of days for the symptoms to show. As she was feeling a bit "foggy", having a few memory issues and her head hurt, I took her to see the doctor, who diagnosed a concussion and said that if her symptoms got worse, to call an ambulance straight away. The very next day, she felt really rough, with a number of the alarm symptoms she'd been told to look out for. The main one of these was that her balance was severely impared - Although she's in her early 70s, she still works as a dance teacher, so has really good mobility for her age, but was finding it difficult to even walk. The ambulance took her straight to hospital, and when the consultant there saw her and how she was having trouble walking and remembering things, he sent her for a CT scan. That came back clear, and all of the other tests indicated no sign of critical problems, so he sent her home after making arrangements for her to be contacted by the neuro rehab specialist (the improbably named "Dr Brain"!!).

For the past few weeks, she's been making OK progress. Her memory has more or less recovered, her balance has really improved and she's been able to walk OK and even turn around fairly quickly without going dizzy. However, she seems to be having something of an issue with noise sensitivity. In addition to working as a dance teacher, her and my dad are also involved in the local organ & keyboard club - He's the chairman, and she does the refreshments. While she seems OK with the music at the dances they run each week, she does seem to be having problems with the music at the monthly organ concerts the club organises. After last month's concert, not long after the concussion, she felt "a little bit rough", but put that down to having been on her feet doing the refreshments and also the flashing lights - In addition to the concussion, she also has a number of other long-term medical issues including limited vision that makes her quite sensitive to bright or flashing lights.

Yesterday, she seemed to be doing really well early in the day, having gone shopping for a couple of hours, and then done lots of jobs around the house that she'd not have been able to do a month ago. However, that all changed after she came back from the organ concert. She started off by complaining that the music had been very loud, while my dad said it hadn't been any louder than normal. (Although it has to be said that he's not really much of a help, as he says that all she's suffering from is "panic attacks", because he looked them up on a website and some of her symptoms are listed there, such as nausea and dizziness - He's one of these who thinks he knows more than the doctors, and when told that the senior doctor at the hospital had said that she'd basically "bruised her brain", he said he'd never heard such rubbish, stating quite emphatically that it was impossible for anyone to bruise their brain because it was protected by the skull!!) She also said that she'd felt a little bit rough during the concert.

After getting in, she made herself some supper and sat down to eat it. After taking just one bite of her supper, she suddenly complained of feeling really dizzy and nauseous, with a stiff neck, and felt like she was going to throw up (which she never actually does no matter what is wrong with her). She felt that rough that she had to lay down on the settee for around an hour before she felt able to make it up to bed. When she got up to walk upstairs, she was having trouble walking again - not as bad as when she was in hospital, but about the same as a few days later, before she'd got her balance back properly. That was now 12 hours ago, and she still feels too rough to get up.

Now, I know from the various websites that PCS can lead to sensitivity to loud noise and flashing lights, cause neck pain, nausea etc. However, what I'd like to know is if anyone here has ever come across incidences of PCS causing a delayed reaction to noise, with the nausea etc hitting an hour or so after the end of the noise exposure? Is this the usual noise sensitivity reaction, or does it usually hit as soon as the loud noise is encountered?