I was injured in mid-March, almost 4 months ago now. I fell off my horse on a turn and landed under him, he hit my helmut with his hoof as he was pacing over me, trying to stop. He is a great horse, the fall part was my fault, getting kicked was simply really bad luck.

The helmut was shattered; my skull was not. I had a nasty concussion though. I am very lucky it wasn't more severe.

I had a number of vision problems, cranial 6 nerve damage resulting in double vision, poor balance, short term memory loss, some personality changes, some mental processing issues. I see improvement week by week, which helps a lot.

Over all I am pretty upbeat about the whole thing. I see I am getting better, which helps so much. Lately it has been getting harder, though. It just keeps dragging on and on.

hey there,

Been dealing with post concussion problems for a year solid. Fatigue, headache, spacey, balance, noise and light...very tough dealing with all of these problems and trying to feel better. Take each day slowly and avoid stress. I am still trying to get better and it is very frustrating. I cannot work or exercise and trying to get on disability. My story is on this forum. Lots of good help and advice here. Are you following up at a concussion clinic?

Hello and welcome to NeuroTalk. Happy to see you have come to be with us. Just let us know if we can be of any help.

As you can tell there are great number of fellow members here to assist as possible. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

Again welcome, looking forward to seeing you around.

Darlene

That happened to me about 15-20 years ago and that 'concussion' etc can mess you up for a few months, but you come back to normal slowly usually.
I'd gotten soo far out of it? I couldn't remember my staff's names! Forget about phone #'s and aside from being truly landed upon? Thus sore... that the brains had been either scrambled or something had been 'deleted from the memoroy bank'!
In my case, my horse fell around a sharp turn on one semi-bum hind leg that had mild neuro damage -worst possible timing! He'd do it once out of 2000 strides, but this was the perfect moment.
Be grateful that the helmet's trashed, as the mind [as you are finding], is a terrible thing to lose!
I do remember the emt's asking me who's the President? I answered it soo WRONG! So I'd gotten a beating, too- plus fractured ribs. I then asked about 'how's the horse?', OK, 'how's my saddle?' OK, so I then went along with the program .....when I could remember it!
I kept a steno pad to keep 'me' notes on to talk to the doc about and the ?'s this stuff causes you. Forgetting things is common? But it comes back just don't force it. I hope you won't need this forum too long or too much?
THis is one forum here that mite be useful?
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/forum32.html Click on this blue and it'll transport you to that forum. When do you see your doc[s] for a follow-up visit? Soon I hope, so bring some short sweet notes with you to get him THINKING and to help you THINK better.
In the meantime? I'll try and cross my fingers [sorry, can't do eyes or toes] that nothing neuro persists...
Healing IS a very slow process for these kind of falls. Now go online and get yourself a new helmet! Go ride for ME! [I can't do it anymore & I'm jealous].
's - j

dahlek,

that is awesome that you got back to normal...I have been trying to do this for about a year and am scared that I wont ever be the same...normalcy seems so far away

I am always fatigued, spaced out, slow processing and never feel like myself at all...I was expecting to feel like my old self back in october 09....yeah never happened.

I just feel like i am in the midst of brain injury now

Yeah, I have to be so careful. If I get stressed at all mentally, I fall apart quickly. I have no reserves at all. If I get tired physically, that is okay. I can work hard doing yard work, etc. and be fine. It can actually feel good, it must produce endorphines that do that. But any kind of mental stress and I go backwards in a hurry.

I live in a area with small towns and horses are very popular. I seem to have become to poster-rider around here for why riders must always wear a helmet. I was even asked to go to a 4-H meeting and show them my helmet and explain what happened. It was an interesting experience. There was never any blood with the injury, so I passed around the helmet and had the kids feel how deep the smashed part is and look at the long crack in it. The looks on those kids faces! I bet they will never argue about wearing a helmet again.

At a work party one of my co-workers brought her husband over to talk to me. At first I thought it was just an attempt to chat. In the course of the conversation I figured out that he has horses, she is scared of them and wants to get rid of them. Her intent was that I was being shown as an example of how dangerous horses are and how badly you can get hurt. She seemed a little frustrated when I kept saying it was not the horses fault at all. As I've learned on here, you can get hurt in just about every sport there is. They still have horses.

I actually decided to sell my horse. It was a really hard decision. I made the decision about 3 weeks ago, and he was bought very quickly by a really nice couple. That was remarkable given how many horses are for sale these days. My balance is not as good as it should be to safely ride. I am terrified of getting a second concussion. I count myself incredibly lucky that this isn't worse. Maybe, with time, I will try riding again, but I am going to wait until I am totally confident I am ready. I know it won't be this summer or fall and I thought it was a waste to make the horse be a pasture ornament for a year or two.
Thanks for your kind thoughts.

Welcome to NT

So sorry you're having postconcussion problems, as many do here.

This is a great place to help you through your troubles. We understand.

March 2009 2nd Semester of Freshman year of College earning a Bachelor’s of Liberal Arts. I fell off a horse blacked out for 5 seconds, and had permanent amnesia for 10 hours (meaning I still don't remember what happened during that time). I am told that every 5 minutes I would ask the same questions over and over again. After about 5 hours my friends took me to the ER where I had a CT scan that came back negative. Three weeks later I was sitting watching a volleyball game from forty feet away. I looked down for a second and someone kicked the volleyball right at my head. 9 months later I was feeling much better, meaning I had learned to cope with my symptoms and they weren’t as bad. I went sledding and got way worse with nausea being a new constant companion. It is now 17 months since the horse accident.

2 weeks ago I was beside myself with fear and depression. I barely passed some of my classes in college, I was in constant pain, I was a constant grump and ready to jump down anyone’s throat for nothing, and the nausea/dizziness/lightheadedness/exhaustion/focus-issues did not help.

I saw a neurologist and he suggested that I take Fioricet as often as I liked up to 6 pills a day before the headache begins and now I have no pain!!!!! Everything else is still there but I still haven’t felt this good in over a year...I had forgotten what it felt like to have no pain.

See a Neurologist who can make sure that there is nothing REALLY wrong and then you can try medications. Right now the only thing that docs know about concussions is how to treat the symptoms not actually fix the problem unless it is really bad (like bleeding in the brain or something.

As far as concentration, he also said that I should read for at least 15min per day and as long as I remembered anything when I was finished he would be happy. He wanted me to try to remember something new every day and something more important each day.

Good Luck!
Margarite

At first I thought I would get over everything right away and be back to work in a few days. Boy, was I wrong. I was off for over a month and could only go back part time. I have learned to adjust my timeline to extend to at least a year, maybe more. One thing that has been very helpful to me with this site is finding out that it is normal for this to take a very long time to heal. Reading the posts has taught me a lot more than my visits to the neurologist every did. Thank you.