Cognitive setbacks after minor head bumps
 

7 years post mTBI, many symptoms have improved, some have remained the same but one seems to gradually worsen. The head force needed to cause cognitive symptoms to reappear has become less and less over time. The outcome of a innocuous head bump is a noticeable decline in cognitive stamina within 12 hours. After a week, I'm generally back on track and able to breeze through a day of academia at the office. A lot of you talk about neck issues in this forum, but my sense is that this type symptom is an intra-cranial phenomenon given the "cognitive" presentation as opposed to head pain. No matter how many "head bump free" days I accumulate, the vulnerability never improves and only seems to be getting worse over time.

If any of you have experience this, has there been an intervention or treatment that has helped lessened the occurrence.

I have lived with this for almost 2 decades. The only thing that seems to cause improvement is how long I can go without a bump. The more frequent the bumps, the more sensitive I am. The less frequent the bumps, the more tolerant I am.

I wonder if you are approaching mid age, late 40's to 50's. As we age, we lose some of our resiliency, especially in the brain.

Mark, you guessed that right. I'm 51. I feel like those old pin ball machines where someone has set the "tilt" threshold very low. Strangely comforting to know that someone else knows what I'm talking about. Last week, my barber was whisking off the blades of cut hair off the back of my head with a damp towel. Next day, struggling cognitively to get through the afternoon patients! By day 3, cognitive stamina back on track again. !!!!!!!!what a hassle. Still haven't come across anyone in my professional community who knows how to tackle this symptom.
Cheers, Canadoc

Did you also injure your neck? I was told I had a cervicogenic concussion along with the damaged disk and mtbi.

I like Mark's advice....no more head bumps!!!