LisaGH,

Welcome to NeuroTalk. Sorry to hear of your concussion.

I have good news and bad news.

The good news, What you are experiencing is quite normal.

The bad news, You desire to get back to exercising needs to take a back seat to your brain's recovery.

The brain does not recover like muscles and joints do. The brain needs total rest. No exercising. Minimal cognitive effort. Limit exposure to stimulation.

Without this full rest, you will likely ride a wild roller coaster as you try to recover.

Fortunately, you are very early in the recovery process. This means that you are likely to see good improvement if you start this rest program now.

Avoid caffeine, alcohol, MSG, artificial sweeteners, artificial preservatives, and high sugar content foods. Meat protein is good for the brain. Pork is best.

Adding some vitamins and supplements will help your brain.

B-12 (500-100-mcgs), a B-50 or B-100 complex tablet, D3, Omega 3's, magnesium and calcium, all of the anti-oxidants, and a few others I forget will help your brain flush the toxins and rebuild.

You very likely did not suffer a true concussion as a one time event. It is more likely that you suffered a number of subconcussive impacts that can cause as much damage or more than a single concussion.

You have some serious decisions to make. Your current condition means that your brain has reached the threshold of its tolerance for trauma. It will likely be more sensitive to impacts and even simple jarring that it has been in the past.

You can expect to go through this again, the next time you have a trauma, even minor trauma to your head.

You may also have a subtle upper neck injury. The muscles that connect the upper neck to the skull get damaged and spasm causing concussion symptoms to increase. You can feel them behind your ears. If they are tender, they need to heal, too. It is like a whiplash injury from getting rear ended in a car. Your upper neck may need some specialized chiropractic or PT therapy. Light traction and icing may help.

The next time you go running, run with foam ear plugs in. This will make it so you hear the impact of your foot plant. Try to learn to plant your foot with a softer impact. It is amazing how the foot plant impact can travel to the brain. You may be able to reduce the impact by running with your shoulders rolled forward.

There is one thing you need to remember. Any activity that causes an increase or return of symptoms is slowing or preventing your recovery. Your brain needs to be completely symptoms free for a couple weeks to finish recovering. Otherwise, it is like trying to continue running on an injured ankle.

For future consideration, subconcussive impacts are impacts that jar the brain but do not cause immediate symptoms. The symptoms may not even show up until a week later. Subconcussive impact are cumulative. They can cause far more long term damage than a single bell ringer. People tend to notice a full concussion and rest up a bit. they ignore subc0ncussive impact and continue with the activity and pile more subconcussive impact onto the first.

If or when you return to rugby and ding your head again, if you experience the same symptoms, you will need to consider if your brain can tolerate further rugby risks.

Heading the ball in soccer will also be a serious risk now that your brain is so sensitive to impacts.

If you continue to struggle with dizziness, you may need to seek treatment at a balance or hearing and balance clinic. There are therapies like the Epley Maneuver that can help orient loose particles/crystals in the ear than can be causing your dizziness.

If you do not develop head aches from exercise, you may be able to spin to maintain some fitness.

Hope you feel better.

My best to you.