General concussion question
 

I have recently been doing my own research regarding concussions, to be frank I don't trust most physician's opinions, so I have taken it upon myself to independently research.

I have two main topics I am inquiring about, the first is about the actual structural damage to the brain.

If you had two people that suffered literally identical injuries (just thoeretically), and had the same structural damage to the brain, is it possible that one person may experience symptoms while the other does not?

I ask this because I am friends who play football, who do not ever experience concussion symptoms, even when they get hit extremely hard.

Is a person's tendency to experience symptoms, almost like the pain threshold? I have a very high pain threshold. So if someone was cutting me as opposed to a friend, I wouldn't feel as much pain as they do, but the injuries are identical.

Sorry if this seems confusing, basically I am just asking if someone with a less severe brain injury can experience more severe symptoms than someone who does.

Secondly I was wondering about this, "gate," concept.

I have not dramatically increased my blood flow for quite a few months, could the very fact that I have not increased my blood flow be the cause for the symptoms?

Same with noise, I have not been in a noisy area for many months and now I get headaches when I am put in those situations. Could I be experiencing these symptoms due to the fact that I am not used to the noise?




Thanks in advance.

Thomas,

There is a saying, If you have seen one concussion, you have seen ONE concussion. No two are alike. Two different people with the same exact impacting force will have entirely personal experiences with symptoms. Prior impact history, differences in brain development, and a whole variety of differences may explain why some can tolerate more than others.

I don't understand what you refer to as 'gate.'

Some say we condition ourselves to tolerate different levels of stimuli. That may be true for an uninjured brain but the injured brain often has lost the ability to filter out certain kinds of stimuli.

If this is what you mean by gate, then, yes, it is an injury not a pattern that determines how much stimulation can be tolerated, at least for most of us with injured brains. Some can re-adapt to a level where they can tolerate the visual or auditory stimuli but from what I understand, this has more to do with some physical neurological recovery and maybe some learned skills at focusing despite the sensory overload. For example, I can tolerate and process more sounds if I close my eyes.

Years ago, a neuro did a AEP (Auditory Evoked Potential) exam. This measure the waveforms as auditory stimuli is taken in and processed. He was astounded that my brain have virtually no ability to 'gate' or filter out extraneous stimuli.

btw, Your friends who appear to tolerate head impacts may become more concussion symptomatic as they age. Anybody who allows their brain to be traumatized risks neurological deterioration. Studies have shown that the concussed brain has less tolerance for all kinds of stress factors.

Those with the higher intelligence tend to show more concussion symptoms.

Regarding blood flow, The Buffalo protocol has shown improvements in tolerance for physical exertion. It works by staying below the symptomatic level of effort and slowly increasing that level over a period of weeks.

Not confusing at all, good question.

Mark stated it well, similar impacts and similar resultant structural damage can have very different outcomes. "Less severe" impact does not always equal less severe symptoms.

In my case for example, my TBI was categorized as moderate to severe, and included a skull fracture with an epidural hematoma that required craniotomy surgery. It took about six months but my symptoms did resolve. Yet many people have relatively "minor" injury (at least as defined by measurable criteria such as GCS) and have affects that last years.

The majority of concussion patients fully recover, although multiple concussion increase the likelihood of persistent symptoms.

Wishing you well in your continued recovery.

In response to your second question I think that the answer is twofold. At first after a concussion with PCS you cannot exercise or be around bright light and noise and so you do not do those things, but after you begin to heal you still cannot do those things because your body is no longer used to those things. It is as though the PCS has put you in a dark prison, but when you are released you still cannot stand the sunlight because of all the time spent in the dark.

I ran up three flights of stairs 4 days ago challenging my little sister to a race, and I am still feeling the results. I feel like I am falling down while reclining in a chair. Such is life for me now, but I hope that someday I can find a way to cope with this so that I can consider getting married and having kids because as I am now, that is not going to happen.

Good Luck!
Happy Easter!
~Margarite