two questions!
 

First of all, I had two drinks last night (I should have been avoiding alcohol due to PCS but unfortunately the social occasion got the better of me), and I felt a burning sensation at the back of my head? Why would this be?

Secondly, has anyone else found their tolerance for stress has been significantly reduced? I am generally okay day to day now but the moment something stressful comes up I get crippling headaches; I get them a lot at the moment as I'm possibly about to be made redundant.

Not sure about the burning sensation, but I think we'd all be kidding ourselves if we said we didn't engage in a casual drink here or there. For many people, one drink, for example a glass of wine, can help you relax. It's not ideal for the brain, but the reduction in stress is sometimes a good thing.

As for your second question, it's a VERY common symptom to PCS. For example, prior to my MVA, I worked with students with emotional support issues at a high school level. My students were aggressive, which led to me to be constantly in flight or fight. But I learned to channel that, and therefore never got majorally freaked out about stressful events even outside of work.

After my accident, if something small happened, (ex. My boyfriend moved my glasses to somewhere our dog couldn't get them, and I couldn't find them immediately) I would complete meltdown. Anger, sobbing, migraine, tinnitus, etc. I can tell you this slowly gets better over time. However, I still have an occassional over reaction to stress. You really have to decide in that moment you are not going to let yourself get stressed about it, so you can prevent the headache that will result. Sometimes this will be easy, others impossible.

It's also good to recruite others to help you manage your response to stress. My cognitive therapist had my boyfriend and I develop a set of flash cards for this kind of situation. In the moment of stress, your brain uses all it's energy on your emotional response to the stress and therefore, you are unable to use energy being rational or responding the way you need to. For me, this meant being unable to tell others what I needed when I hit meltdown mood, leading me to be mean, nasty and then exhausted from melting down.

So what we did was create a set of cards that explained my response to common stressful events I experienced. For example, "I am feeling overwhelmed and scared." On the back was a list of options for myself and my boyfriend. Ex- "I need to take a break, by myself in our bedroom." "Please give me a hug and let me spend some time alone. I will come and tell you when I am feeling more calm".

This allowed me to tell someone what I needed at that given moment, when I didn't have the cognitive energy to explain myself. It also helped me to start building the coping skill of telling people what I need at a given moment, when I am upset.

I don't know how many times the long termers/old timers here have tried to emphasize the need to keep stress low. That stress can be emotional, physical, mental/cognitive, and nutritional (alcohol, caffeine etc)

A high stress event can undo weeks of recovery. It can require days to weeks to recover from just the stress event before getting to where you can continue your concussion recovery.

A social occasion can be a stressor that leads to brain overload resulting in poor decision making. Think of all the bad decisions made while buzzed. PCS is like your brain being in a constant state of buzz. Decision making is always at risk.

thanks :) It is very hard to not get stressed about the whole work situation, as I have completely reliant on myself financially so being made redundant might set me back severely in my recovery.