Exercise
 

Have any of you who can't do strenuous excercise without symptoms worsening found any workarounds or low impact exercise that can get the heart rate up without having a negative effect on your head?

I think exercise bikes and other low impact gym equipment might be the way forward, I've never tried these things because I pretty much ruled out any sort of exercise other than walking.

I guess this all depends on if the issue is movement, heart rate or a combination. I'd like to find out but am a bit cautious.

Anyone have any advice or experiences to share?

No experience but I've always been a walker and that doesn't work anymore because it feels like it's jarring my head most of the time. I am considering a Stamina Magnetic Resistance Recumbent Bike like this http://www.walmart.com/Stamina-Magne...ike/ip/7680164

My daughter used an eliptical machine early in her recovery. Eliptical machines are really smooth and non-jarring. Then she progressed after many months to running outside, etc. You need to heal in two ways...the regulation of heart rate, etc. AND the ability to withstand light jarring that comes from jogging, etc.

A simple way to determine if your exercise is jarring your head is to put in foam ear plugs. With them in, you will hear the impacts that effect your head. Then, you can determine early in your routine if the exercise puts you at a jarring risk.

You do not need to exercise with the ear plugs. Just use them to check the jarring action.

You can also use them to learn to walk with a smoother gate. Many people plant their heels too hard. This is not only hard on the brain but is rough on the joints in the legs and cushioning disks in the spine.

With ear plug training, you can learn to walk like a dancer or even Grasshopper from the old Kung Fu (David Caradine) days.

I have had many issues with exercising, although I get a splitting headache once my heart rate gets up and nearly faint.

I have also done the eliptical, recumbent bike and swimming. My Dr's keep telling me that my issues are only due to muscle spasms in my neck that are affecting my optic nerve and causing these symptoms.

So now I am trying to do exercises that are low impact and easily controllable and don't make my neck or upper back/neck tighten.

Needless to say, I really miss working up a sweat.

Although....I did go to see a personal trainer who had me do an hours worth of monitored easier strengthening exercises and I really worked up a sweat. I had to sit down every once in a while so I didn't faint, but it was the best workout I have had in a year and a half.

Doing core work (vertical) on BOSU ball was really good, increases your heart rate and makes you feel a little more like you did before!

Good luck

I'm interested that your docs are telling you that your optic nerve symptoms are caused by muscle spasms in your neck. What kind of doctor? A chiro or neuro? My daughter's neck was injured at the same time she received concussion. She saw chiro for treatment but nobody ever equated her optic nerve issues to muscle spasms in neck. Hmm...

Keeping her vision straight during movement was the final hurdle my daughter crossed during vision therapy. At one point she was feeling really good and normal until she was physically active. Eventually she was able to do her vision exercises while balancing on a bongo board and now she does not have a return of symptoms with exercise. It's similar to rehabilitating an ankle injury that can withstand standing, then walking, and eventually running and jumping.

For her it was all about re-training her optic nerves to stay "turned on" equally. Losing your center of vision puts the brain into overdrive as it tries to make sense of what it's seeing, which leads to panic attack-type symptoms (headache, vertigo, nausea, pounding heart, etc.).

Can you feel this tightening in your neck muscles? Are you still receiving treatment for your neck?

These symptoms are so intertwined with other conditions (vestibular, blood pressure, etc) it's like a giant puzzle to be solved.

My daughter would ride the exercise bike. She started slowly (5-10) minutes at a time and then built up. We also kept her heart rate low initially and then slowly increased that as well. We found she was more sucessful with exercise after we started working with a NUCCA chiropractor.

After my accident I had lost a portion of my vision in my right eye, which came back. But it hurt my left eye everytime I looked in a new direction. I saw a neuro opthamalogist to make sure that everything was good (which it was). He said that I was on a good path being on Gabapentin and Elavil.

The next was a psychiatrist who did a bunch of range of motion tests with my neck, and questions from my other doctors notes/tests. He felt that with the whiplash, the vertigo, dizziness and headaches, you naturally tighten up and may not realize it. With Vertigo, you tense up to feel more stable.

I do notice that on days where I am stressed, my headaches are much worse as is the pain in my eye. I just started back to work and I find that every afternoon, I am full headache and eye pain so I try to stretch throughout the day and massage it in the evening.

I am waiting for his report to suggest treatments, but also mentioned injections in the nerve (there are some posts on Occipital neuralgia).

I am a huge hockey fan, and find that I can only watch a small amount of a game, if at all. The movement of the players/camera is too quick and it causes stabbing pain in my left eye.

I will post an update once I get the treatments and how they go.

Ouch...that does not sound fun. I'm sorry you are struggling.

My daughter saw two different neuro opthamologists, both of whom told her to wait a year and see what happened. You might benefit from visiting a vision therapist or an optomitrist. Opthamologists and optomitrists have very different views (pardon the pun) on treating optic nerve trauma. Might help...might not...but it's worth investigating.

My daughter also had stabbing pain in her left eye if she looked too far one way or another. She had nystagmus (eye jumping), convergence insufficiency (tracking), etc. She couldn't tolerate flashes on TV, reading, busy places like stores or churches, etc. She saw shadows where there were none, saw stationary objects move, etc. It sucks..I'm sorry you're going through this.

That is really interesting that you tighten up to feel more stable when you have vertigo. What a vicious darn circle.

One more thing...when your eyes are that tense you get really tight muscles throughout your face and jaw. My daughter got a lot of relief from accupressure and reflexology techniques I learned from the book "Brainlash." Now that she's getting better it is AMAZING to feel the difference in her face and jaw muscles, and even her feet. Might sound crazy but it helped a lot.

When we first started accupressure and reflexology she got really frustrated because she could see how it was supposed to feel in a relaxed state. Then when it tightened up she felt worse. Eventually the muscles stayed relaxed for loner and longer periods of time between "treatments".

Hi,

I am so happy that I have no optic nerve damage, eyes look good, just the pain stemming from my neck.

I can relate to that pain of eye movement, it sucks. Plus the dizziness when following objects. But in a weird way, just knowing that there are treatments to help that and that those will be in the future makes me happy.

I just limit my TV watching to things that dont have flashing lights, I avoid driving at night (or have sunglasses), and avoid things that have a lot of movement.

I did my first reflexology appt about a week ago and it was so nice! I never knew how that could change how you feel! But yes, to have a taste of it, and then experience the headaches and pain again gets frustrating.

I try to look at it as: it is possible, and it can happen so that helps reduce the frustration and stress. I am working on letting go of that jump to the negative feeling, and trying to just enjoy the good feeling.

I had a concussion in my teens, and now looking back, I can see how much it changed things, and we never made the association and connection between the concussion and the random odd things that were happening for the years following.

Sorry to hear that you and your family have had to deal with all of this, its hard when it ends up consuming your life. I have tried to adopt the viewpoint of my friend who has MS. She lives her life normally and she sees it as its just something she has, its not something that she is.

That helps me feel normal and its just something I am dealing with, but I am still me.

You are right though, it can be a viscous cycle. Just need to find the path to getting out of it! These types of posts really help though!!!