I am 27 and about 6 weeks ago was involved in a fluke accident at a bar where I was in the wrong place and wrong time, meaning some moron threw a beer mug across the room and it broke on my head. Besides a small cut in my forehead and feeling dazed I felt fine, if not worn out. The next week I was vomiting and had horrible headaches along with a lot of dizziness which kept me from being able to walk normally.

I have had a CAT Scan and an MRI, neither of which seem to show anything. I have a lot of trouble with lights, pain in my ear that comes and goes, and headaches that last forever. Somedays, I don't have a lot of these signs but I am always exhausted. The most frustrating thing is that my symptoms change from the nausea, headache, diziness, neck pain, ear pain and so on. Also it seems like I have a very low threshold on my emotions any time I feel any kind of stress. I am not depressed but I will feel low, or suddenly sad or suddenly irate over nothing at all. I tend to be a phobic in open places and have irrational thoughts about what dangers could be around.

My Dr's have said that this will take time to heal and have given me come anti anziety medicines to help. I am going to the neurologist this week and hope that he can shed some light on this whole situation. At times I feel like I am actually going crazy from the overly emotional feelings to the physical symptoms that seem to pop up all the time. Though my Dr. assures me this is not due to me going crazy, it sure feels like it sometimes. It is hard for my bf to understand my sudden changes and the fact that I get phobic at times with no warning. Sometimes just being touched makes it all so much worse.

Don't get me wrong, I have some days that are better than others. Some days I almost feel "normal" again. My concern is that I can not do a lot of daily things like grocery shoppping or driving without getting serious headaches, nausea, dizziness and ear pain.

I guess I am just looking to see if everyone else had similar types of symptoms, how they dealt with them and any other suggestions that might help me out. I keep being told that it just takes time, but sometimes I wonder if they really even know. I just want to find some more ways to get my life back to normal so I can work and do the things I normally do!

sorry to hear of everybody's misfortunes. I'm 7 months 8 days into my PCS.

I had to beat one of my neurologists to get him to explain to me that MRIs and CT scans dont show anything abnormal in people with PCS. I kept having them tell me after i was diagnosed with PCS that the MRI/CT scans that were done " did not show anything that explained the symptoms i was continuing to have." Well after digging through medical journals through online, doctors have decided that assuring that patient that the symptoms will reside shortly is the best action to take. Which is exactly what they did to me. ER doc: 2-3 weeks, 4 weeks tops. Neurologist: 3 months Different neurologist: 6 months tops. It was till recently that a doctor told me what i had read in several places. Could be a year or more or permanent. Which is a horrible prospect. Pounding headaches and difficulty concentrating for the rest of your life. Id be lying if I said i didnt think about suicide every day. But at this point theres still hope, so i trudge on. The truth is there isnt anything the doctors can do to fix it, and it is a wait game. But theres no way to know how long it can last. It could be permanent. It could stop tomorrow. So try to keep you head up. I dont check this forum as often as i should so, if anyone needs some moral support on wants to share notes email me at owenincville@gmail.com

Just curious as to what you symptoms are? My neurologist told me the progess you see at 6 months is a guidepost for the following six months and that after a year some might be permanent. Also wondering what kind of meds you might be trying?

Just so you both know we have a forum specifically for this issue.

And its a very good one.

Donna

Owen: I don't know if you are still following this thread, but I must share my daughter's encouraging experience with you. She's now 15 and for over a year she had PCS symptoms including debilitating headaches, dizziness, extreme fatigue and lethargy, difficulting focusing and concentrating, light and sound intolerance. Notice I said HAD...Her doctor prescribed a low dose of Effexor XR to promote neurogenesis and I was able to finally convinced her to see an acupuncturist. Within 3 weeks her symptoms cleared up by at least 90%. The acupuncturist said that blockages in her upper back and neck were impeding blood flow to her brain, causing her symptoms. I don't know how it works, but I can tell you that it DOES. For the first time since this nightmare began I am confident that she'll be able to live a normal life.

Just wondering if anyone suffering with this type of headache also has orthostatic headaches as a feature of pain. An orthostatic headache is an increase in headache pain when you stand up. Pain levels may also decrease or go completely away when you lay down. If you have this symptom as a feature to your pain, you should consider that you may have Spontaneous Intracranial Hypotension. I'll post a link to an article.

I ask because SIH is a type of headache brought on by a CSF leak. CSF leak headache characteristics are very similar to PCS, but with orthostatic feature (although not always...). One remarkable similarity is that NO medication makes an orthostatic headache better or go away. My husband has suffered with orthostatic headache from a lumbar puncture 10 months ago. We went through all kinds of tests, treatments, etc. He's still suffering while awaiting the next 'go ahead' for treatment by his neuro team. It sucks!

Here are some links to articles:

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/466089_print

http://www.treatment-options.com/art...icle&KeyWords=

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/405618_print

Thought I'd throw it out there, because it IS treatable and it's something that doctors may not suspect right away.

Good luck!
Laura
Weary Wife of a Leaky Husband

Laura
You might want to go to the Post concussion syndrome area and post this too.

Donna

I was sent for physiotherapy and massage to deal with the headaches that come from the bottom of the neck and roll up like someone is pulling a hood over my head. It took 8 months to get in to see neurologist after my fall that caused concussion and nobody told me that it could have anything to do with my neck but in the end it was the whiplash I guess that got the treatment not the concussion and the physio folks are wonderful. They explained that it is build up of tension the back and neck from the accident that sort of hardened. The dizziness is linked to the tension in the neck. I go twice a week and have been there for 2 months- one more to go. They use TENS machines to zap the nerves and wet heat, sometimes ultrasound on the back, neck stretching and most recently a sort of inner tube thing to stretch the neck. It has helped a lot with the tension and the headaches, but it is up to me to recognize when I feel tension coming on or headache and deal with the situations/causes.

I still have vision problems- blurriness etc and could not read for a long time-the letters bounced too much- mostly better but sometimes the contrast on charts or things with dark and light still created vision problems.

I was told to not go to chiropractor because of violent neck snaps but to try cranial sacral or something gentler.

I still get dizziness and the physio folks have a treatment for that too involving the tiny crystals on the hairs in inner ear but I have not done it yet. I find the dizzyness comes and goes- sometimes gone for months but then it comes back. Since physio though lots of the symptoms are better but I was off work for a while and worked half time for almost 8 months until I finally got referral. It still did not come from family doctor- or any treatment for that matter- she still says to just wait and see--but I would recommend getting the tension in the neck dealt with to help with the headaches that comes from back of head.

The medical community doesn't really understand post concussion and I have found very little support but there are good books and lots on the internet that helped me to stumble my way through it. I am still dealing with it 10 months later- much much better but there are days that I forget about it and do too much - do what would be considered normal to do in the past and then it creeps up again with dizziness or fatigue or memory lapse etc. I have just learned to accept that it has altered who I am and I am working on dealing with living with the new me.

I am a college athlete in my senior year of college and sustained a concussion back in october of 2009. It was my second concussion in the same year (first one was january of 2009). In late october I returned to playing, lying about my symptoms (idiotic of me I know) and ended up having major whip lash from running into a metal pole when I was running to save a ball from going out of bounds. It gets worse- I stood up into a metal pipe at my teams holiday party in december.

I have been struggling with severe headaches and fogginess since day one of my second concussion, and developed neck pain in january 2010 which in turn made my head feel like it was going to explode. That headache is different from my concussive headache which is more a pounding in my forehead, which has caused me to wear earplugs often and also keeps me from being able to even talk at times. No one has been able to address this foggy feeling I'm having--it's not that I cannot concentrate, i've never had issues doing that, but its this strange feeling, kind of like when you first wake up in the morning and things aren't entirely clear.

The doctors here at my school have repeatedly told me that cognitive rest (no TV, no computer, no NOTHING, basically being a vegetable), is the only way I am going to get better. I've tried their way multiple times, with little to no improvement. And they have repeatedly come back at me claiming that the reason I'm feeling this way still is because I haven't done what I've been told--which has been absolutely infuriating. Laying in a dark room with nothing but my thoughts only makes me cry. It has been pretty depressing to say the least when I am missing my entire senior year of college- I don't go out, I've grown apart from all my friends, I don't even attend practices because standing on the sidelines is way to taxing and as I"m sure all of you can relate I often think I will never get better.

I've had to take incompletes this semester in some of my classes and was planning to come back next year for a fifth year to play (I'm redshirting this year). But as the weeks and months go by I am becoming more and more doubtful that I will get to have my senior year.

My mom has been my one and only advocate in this entire ordeal. My parents brought me home for a week so I could see some doctors at home, to get second opinions. I received some EXCITING news and thought this was my chance to get better and get to play for my senior year. It's something called the subsymptom threshhold recovery program-- It is a study done and performed out of Buffalo and one was done out of Montreal-
It won't let me submit the link but Just google "Subsymptom Threshold Recovery Program" and It's an article by J. Leddy. It's some breakthrough stuff and they have found success with each person that has participated.

A month later after seeing those doctors who introduced me to this research, the doctors here at my school are now just starting to administer the program with me. (actually starting tomorrow) They have been very difficult and reluctant to treat my situation in any other way but their own.

I wanted to not only share my story but see if there is anyone else out there who is suffering from PCS with similar symptoms and if they got better. I hope that I will be able to report back to this forum that this subsymptom threshold recovery program helped cure me, for it is not only my wish to feel NORMAL again but to be able to have a senior year.

Hi Erica... welcome to Neurotalk.

Your post has interesting information on it, and I bet it would help some of our posters at our Traumatic Brain Injury forum as well:

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/fo...aysprune=&f=92

I hope this new program works for you!