Anxiety and concussions
 

Hello guys,

I haven't been hear in over a year and just want to spread my message.
Two years ago I thought my brain was damaged. I had all the symptoms you could imagine. I was detached, dizzy, had blurry vision and a set of crazy symptoms I'll never forget.
It all started when I bumped my head and I got a headache. I thought I had a concussion and a week later I sarted feeling miserable. I went from doctor to doctor but they could not find anything. I went to the ER and to every specialist around. It was a horrible time and I no treatment helped.
The doctors looked at me and just shrugged their shoulders and told me that my nervous system was probably damaged, some just stared at me with a funny look, like if I was crazy.
I was then send to a neuropsychologist. I remeber that session. I was sitting in front of her with dark sunglasses because I thought all the sensation around me would damage my brain even further.
She explained to me that the only thing being wrong with me was my reaction when I bumped my head. She said that it was only in my head and my anxiety caused all of this.
Well I did not belive her at first. What did this **** just say? I am not stupid, I thought, I really suffer from a serious condition and you don't know what I am going through.
But she urged me to believe her and yes it made sense. The x ray, nor the MRI showed anything specific and I just bumped my head. And I had an anxiet issue before all this happened.
But why was I experiencing all the symptoms then?
Anxiety does this to you. It manifest in crazy thoughts and symtomps. I educated myself on the subject and realized that every symptom I experienced was also found in anxiety disorders.
I went to a therapist and I was in fact diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, including health anxiety.
After this diagnosis I went out and did sport for the first time in months. Before that I wouldn't even dare to sneeze or shake my head. I didn't take my meds anymore and faced my fears and it just took a month and the first symptoms started to disappear. It took me a while to get up the courage but in the end I overcame my fears and lost all my symtomps. I do a lot of sport nowadays and lead a happy life.
This is for the people that only have a minor concussion, and didn't pass out or anything. This is also for the people that have had anxiety issues before. I really am convinced that the post concussion syndrome exists but our body is the best healing system in the world and when bumping your head it will quickly repair itself.
Please don't feel offended by my statement. If you can afford it see a neuropsychologist or a doctor that specialized on anxiety. Or just check out this website. You find a list of symptoms when you scroll down. http://www.anxietycentre.com/anxiety-symptoms.shtml

Best wishes to everyone!

PS: Please excuse my English!

Lui,

I am glad you found help for your anxiety. I remember expressing concern that anxiety was a big part of your problem.

Good for you.

Yes I was just lucky that I got help! :)
I feel like a lot of people on here are anxiety driven people which do not suffer from a cocussion but anxiety and if anybody feels like anxiety might be their main problem,feel free to message me. I would be happy giving advice!

with a caveat that anxiety can be a symptom of PCS/TBI.

yep, but if the person suffered from anxiety before it can be the other way around and the person creates the concussion symptoms themselves due to imagination.

I appreciate the idea being spread here that anxiety can magnify the very minor symptoms that we may actually have. What about tinnitus and hyperacusis ? How do you relate that to anxiety ? Specially when the tinnitus started soon after the concussion . One possibility I know is upper neck injury .

I suffered from tinnitus very badly, it's also an anxiety symptom. Sorry my limited English skills won't tell me what hyperacusis is...
But all the symptoms people experience with migraines, migraine aura, epilepsy can be found in anxiety as well and oh man I had them all. Derialization, blurred vision etc.
Sure people could tell me that was all concussion related but no a slight bump to the head will never do that to you.
I'll quote my neurologist: "I don't know what's wrong with you and why you still have the symptoms. You would have gotten hit my a cannon ball to still experience such symptoms."
That's why so many doctors might give a wrong diagnosis and label you as "brain damaged" and tell you to take it easy, though the main problem might be anxiety.
Anxiety is a wide subject which is unfortunately not clear to all the doctors/therapists out there.
I will give a short summary about anxiety disorders:
Your nervous system is pretty much playing tricks on you. It's not damaged or anything. In most cases people start suffering from anxiety when under a great deal of stress. (Not the most uncommon thing in our society.)
Their nerves get tired/"bad". You react more sensitive to things and might start experiencing symptoms(detachment from the outside world, blurred vision, or just shaky hands etc...)
I think everybody has heard of the flight/fight system before, the nice gift inherited from our acestors.
Well when your nerves are "bad" it kicks in pretty easily and you develop fears. It can be all kinds of fears, fear of health included.
Every slight change in health can be a reason for the person to panic and imagining illnesses.
In my case I heard of concussion a few weeks before I bumped my head. When I bumped it my "bad nerves" convinced me that I had a concussion. I was under a lot of stress before that.
At that my point my body was so tired and run-down that it just shut off and all the symptoms came into place. The diagnosis of the doctors gave me the rest.
There are many ways leading to anxiety and as many people suffer from it.

I am so glad that you are feeling better.

Yes, anxious people can convince themselves that they have everything from concussion to cancer.

However, TBI patients, especially those with no premorbid history of anxiety/depression should resist - with every fibre of their being - any attempt by lazy/ignorant clinicians to make this the default diagnosis.

Your injury was very mild (not that very real TBI can't result from that), mine wasn't. I was in a serious, high speed MVA. I have anxiety and depression because of my TBI. I don't have TBI symptoms because of anxiety and depression.

In your case, the anxiety was diagnosed by a neuro-psychologist. If, after doing a neuro-psych, mine had told me my TBI symptoms were the product of anxiety, I would have believed her. However, I would never accept that diagnosis of the basis of x-rays and a standard MRI. That would be like saying I don't have throat cancer because I have no cavities. Those tests aren't even close to adequate, let alone conclusive.

As I said, I am sincerely happy that your TBI symptoms have been identified as a manifestation of your anxiety. However, you are the EXCEPTION, not the rule.

I agree. Like I said before, the post was meant for those with a history of anxiety and mild concussions, not for the servere cases on here. Sorry if I offended anyone.

Oh heavens, no. I hope I didn't come across as offended. I do think that a premorbid history of anxiety is important in evaluating TBI. I just worry that too many doctors use it as a cop out for brain injuries they don't understand and/or complex patients they don't want to deal with.

Many doctors have very dismissive attitudes about brain injury patients. As a group, we have to be strong advocates for proper treatment - whatever it turn out to be.

I think the challenge about anxiety is complex. Doctors see patients come in complaining about PCS and manifesting anxiety and the docs want to treat the anxiety. They usually do not have any treatments for the other PCS symptoms. They usually do not directly connect the struggle with anxiety with the injury. I doubt they really understand that concussions create/increase the physiological cause of anxiety.

The PCS subject has a similar dilemma. Their anxiety can be overwhelming and self-perpetuating. The 'when is this going to be over?' anxiety often rules the days. They are left to their own devices to sort out physiological vs psychological anxiety. They are rarely given tools (counseling, etc) to lower their own psychological anxiety levels let alone being told that some of the anxiety is directly due to their injury.

Learning to accept PCS symptoms as real and ongoing, at least for the time being, can help. The moment by moment 'when is this going to be over?' is counter productive. Many on NT appear to track their symptoms by the hour. This is not helpful. We need to let go of those micro-tracking of symptoms and try to look at a longer term analysis. Hopefully, this will lessen anxiety levels.

So, if we can reduce the psychological component of anxiety, we give our brains a better opportunity to heal from the physiological component of anxiety. For some of us, that physiological component of anxiety will be with us for a long time, for some, even permanently.

It is a big struggle with no simple or quick cure.

I'm new to this site as of today. I had a bicycle accident exactly 6 weeks ago. Broke my hand, my ankle and worst of all learned that I had a concussion. The concussion stuff didn't hit me until approximately 5 days later. Headaches and naseau are pretty much gone but will this anxiety ever go away. Scares the heck out of me. One day I think I'm recovering then all the sudden, bam, major panic attacks. I never had anything like this. Neurologist put me on Effexor and then moved me to Zoloft which made me feel like my heart was going to explode. I finally went to my general practitioner who told me to stop taking it. I felt better for a day. Almost normal then bam, last night I had a major anxiety attack for no reason. Is this ever going to end? I can't live like this. Currently taking Ativan but only a .5 milligrams. Any help or recommendations? I want my normal back. I never had to deal with this stuff before the crash. Please help.

I went through the exact same thing as you are with panic attacks. Never had them before my last concussion. At first I didn't even know that these were panic attacks, I thought it was some symptom of concussion until my GP realized what was going on and put me on xanax.
When it was at its worst I couldn't sleep for several days, my BP was through the roof, I couldn't function at all. The realization that it was all just panic attacks helped some, but I continued to have them on a daily basis for about two months. I refused to take xanax so just toughed it out.

Don't really have an answer for you as everyone is different, the only thing I can tell you is that this is "normal" for PCS and it will get better. Also I would avoid any heavy stuff like xanax and anti-depressants as much as possible.

Jeff146,

Welcome to NeuroTalk.

As RR said, anxiety is normal for PCS. But, there are often things you can do to minimize them. Your brain is hyper sensitive to all stimuli, visual, audio (sounds and voices), tactile(touch). It is also hyper-sensitive to caffeine and stimulants. So, reducing these factors can help. Many need to wear foam ear plugs for a while, especially in noisy situation. Shopping malls can be miserable for PCS.

If you can, get your blood pressure checked when you are having an attack. Many have at-home meters. If your BP is elevating, a beta blocker may help better than a benzo (Ativan) or SSRI (Zoloft) or SNRI (Effexor). The latter two take weeks to start to work. A beta blocker like propranolol can be taken at the time of the anxiety attack and work in 30 minutes or so. It is a basic blood pressure lowering med that helps with the other panic issues, too. Maintenance use of benzos are not recommended for PCS.

The first way to move forward is to accept that you need a vacation from normal. You need to slow down and get 'quiet rest.' That means low stress, low stimulation for an extended period. There is no way to push through PCS. In fact, trying to push through will only make your PCS last longer.

Your brain will only heal when stress is low and you have no anxiety. Anxiety is like massive pollution for your struggling brain.

It will help you to read the Vitamins sticky at the top. The injured brain needs additional nutrition far above what a healthy brain can survive on. It also needs to be free of intoxicants (alcohol) and stimulants (caffeine). At most, a single serving per day of either is considered OK by some.

And, most important. Just because you are having a good day does not mean you can return to 'normal' activity levels. Those good days need to last for a week or two before they can be considered recovery. Many end up riding the good day, bad day roller coaster because they do too much on their good days. Year end party and social time is over so you have an opportunity to slow down and let time heal.

Also, nobody can predict how long your recovery will last.

Please feel free to tell us about any other symptoms you are experiencing.

My best to you.

I find doctors almost always rush to Anxiety as the solve all fix even without a strong history of anxiety.

When I went back to the doctor (and I saw 2 different ones) after the concussion symptoms not elevating after a few weeks, they were both heavily implying anxiety as the root cause of my issues. Which just didn't match, since when did anxiety cause headaches and nausea so badly? Especially with no history of it prior.

There is a lot of chicken and egg with the concussion symptoms causing, or caused by the anxiety however.

I do think you can exacerbate or even outright cause symptoms by worrying. But I highly doubt current doctors have a strong enough understanding to really say which it is.

I also had very prolonged recovery from a head injury that involved a cycling accident whilst training for last year's cycling season. Your problems sound somewhat similar to mine in many ways--although I also battled visual and vestibular symptoms.

My anxiety made these symptoms about 10 times worse . . . and although Zoloft did not work for me, Effexor has worked quite well. I have a history of anxiety and depression and my concussion was severe (and docs think a vestibular concussion by the way I hit the back of my head). It was a recipe for severe anxiety and depression for me--yet relatively minor symptoms were turned into major ones because of the psychiatric difficulties.

Please consider seeing a neuropsychologist, if they have them in your area. I got my anxiety and depression in check, and all of my symptoms quickly started to resolve. NPs are very good at explaining the complex soup that is mental illness + tbi. I was also much better able to accept my situation. I do not, and may never feel 100% the same as I was, but that isn't keeping me from racing my bike again this year and leading a full and active life!

Cheers!

Lui,

Glad you brought this up...interesting subject and responses.

I have always been a worrier but this injury turned it into a monster! I have spent countless hours and days thinking I was making stuff up, wondering what came first the chicken or the egg but at the same time something has always seemed wrong.

All I ever got from my docs was the default answer for what they can't test for...anxiety, takes some of these pills and I wasn't convinced it was "all in my head".

I have fought a long hard battle with anxiety the last 18 months and it is retreating begrudgingly. I hope the diagnosis from the neuro optometrist this week proves correct. My eyes are not working together and one is looking up by itself, apparently causing a great deal of anxiety when you can't see straight or focus on a subject easily or for sustained periods.

Bud