Frustrated with minor accidents setting back recovery
 

Just when I feel like I have a string of good days and start feeling like I'm going to get better, bad luck strikes again. Yesterday I slipped walking down stairs because of slick socks and slid down a few stairs. I sort of caught myself on the railing, but still hit my pelvis kinda hard and slid down a few stairs. Didn't have any immediate change in symptoms, other than a spike in adrenaline, but I settled down and went to a chiro appt.

I tried not to think about it, but while resting a few hours later just felt really tired and slowed down. Since then I've generally felt worse than I was a few days ago, although not much change in headaches. In reality I don't think this did anything, but I just can't seem to shake the idea that all these little accidents are setting me back, and it's getting me really down. I'm not super anxious about it, more so just depressed that I keep managing to screw something up just when I start feeling better. I guess that's life.

Anyone have strategies for avoiding minor accidents like this? I'm generally pretty careful, and don't have balance issues or anything like that, but it seems I keep managing to hurt myself.

hey there,
well, MarkinIdaho always seems to be the one I'm waiting to hear from since he's our resident expert, but yeah, I walk around like I'm on eggshells trying not to jolt myself or hit my head. have done a little of both, but mostly just have gotten good at moving like i'm 95 yrs old.

I'm on day 10 of lexapro...glad to hear it's helped you. how long until you felt some relief? i'm not a total anxious basket case unless i'm suffering a setback, but things that used to not phase me now do...and i wonder how much of me holding back is due to anxiety vs. real symptoms now.

lexapro seems to be making my headaches and jaw grinding (sooo sexy) worse thus far. curious about your experience.

hang in there. my advice is move through the world like you're 95, then gradually 94, 93, 92, and so on. We will slowly work our way back to youth.

PS. Even minor setbacks are DEVASTATING to me... You're not alone in that. I just try to tell myself "I've fallen in another hole, gotta start climbing (resting) back out."

Gonna ask my psychiatrist this week for some tips.

Hi I know exactly how you feel. I had a stage of the recovery that was exactly like you describe. Every little head bump brought back symptoms which I thought I had already recovered from. Eventually symptoms have improved despite the minor head bumps and with each bump I also noticed slighter symptoms than the bump before until the symptoms were manageable. This stage lasted 7 months. I am still wary of a big bump to the head as I am sure this would cause a concussion but the small bumps don't seem to set me back any more. The neurologist told me I will eventually heal from the injury (I had a concussion) as I am only 36 and this does seem to be happening, albeit not as quickly as I would have liked! Over time you will find some stratgies that help you recover faster from the small bumps, what really helps me is if I can stop what I am doing immediately and lie down (not always possible because I have kids!!) then after a couple of days starting to gradually stress the injury with plenty of rest in between. Exercise helped me a LOT with my original injury, I had to start with 1 minute, then rest for 1 week till the headache went down, then work up from there but after about a month I could exercise for half an hour and my overall symptoms were much improved too. And fasting has helped me a lot--i started a separate thread and it didn't seem to popular an idea but that is what just helped me. It took several months of trial and error to find what worked in my case and lots of patience to let the brain do its thing, so hang in there!!

Thanks for the responses. Underwater, my experience with Lexapro hasn't been too bad. I started on July 4th (the day after my minor car accident, I was actually driving to pick up the prescription!). I thought I might have gotten worse headaches the day after, but things got back to normal fairly quickly. I think just the fact that I'd decided to take lexapro (after a long time of worrying about whether or not I should take it) alleviated some anxiety, which must've been moreso a placebo than the medication actually working, as it supposedly takes a while.

I can't pinpoint exactly when I think it started "working". I still feel sad a lot, and have anxious thoughts, but they aren't accompanied by the bodily reactions associated with anxiety, and they tend to not stick around as often. I'd say it probably took me about a month to feel much different.

As far as all these minor accidents, I just wish there were some way of knowing to what extent they actually affect us, i.e. some general rule of thumb that "this sort of impact is fine, and this sort of impact does some damage". I know there isn't a way, and I've reduced the amount I try to "figure this stuff out", but part of the frustration I feel is that I just don't know if they've significantly set me back, or if it's just my reaction to them that's setting me back (likely both, as with most things in life).

I also don't know whether I should back off on what I'm doing when something happens. For instance, this coming week I was planning on volunteer coaching a few days a week for my old high school cross country team, something I figured would be a low key activity that would bring me some joy. Should I not do it because of this slip? Or press on? Same thing with overall exercise, I'm up to 3 20 min. walks a day, should I back off, or keep doing that? I guess there's not an easy answer, I just wish there were!

My setbacks have mostly come from too much activity vs. knocking my head into something (knock on wood). But they have gotten less severe and somewhat shorter lived over time.

I usually cut back pretty far on activity, except for crying on the couch, crying on the phone to friends, crying on friends shoulders :)

Not sure that's the right answer, but i do think there's something to be said for listening to your body and resting. I found this blog a while back and remember her words when i have a set back.
http://allconcussion.com/2013/04/con...with-setbacks/

Helps a little, but I posted some pretty sad words during a relatively minor setback a couple weeks ago. Reason just doesn't reach me when i'm in such a funk. I just tried to tell myself all i really had to do that day was breathe, and that the world wants me around.

Thanks for the responses. I have a general question about all these bump-induced setbacks - is it just my anxiety, or do these bumps acutally cause some (likely minimal) damage, and if they do, is there a cumulative effect of them? Cumulatively I've had 6 or 7 of these jolts/head bumps over the course of the past 6 months (my anniversary is tomorrow...). I understand that these don't constitute a concussion if they aren't accompanied by immediate new symptoms (other than a headache). None of the bumps have done this, except for some dizziness when lying down and closing my eyes (which continues) about an hour after bumping my head on the ceiling in June.

I understand that likely for most of these it's my anxiety about them, rather than the bump itself, that's holding me back. My concussion specialist told me that I likely am more susceptible to injury, and these bumps/jolts might be causing some physiological damage/response, but it's not permanent.

I'm not super anxious about this most recent slip on the stairs, just really down about it because I had a string of good days. I haven't really had an increase in headaches from it, but screen time and reading seem to cause a headache/frazzled out feeling sooner than they were before the slip, and I generally feel more tired and slowed down, and bouts of dizziness when lying down seem to be longer than they were before too.

Try to think of it this way. You have an object that is broken. You have glued it back together but the glue has not set completely yet. Then, you jar it and the glued joints are strained. You push the glued joints back into proper alignment and continue to wait for the glue to set.

Your brain is still healing. You jar it and its healing is set back a few days or weeks, depending on the intensity of the trauma. It could be that the trauma is to your upper neck and not your brain. That is a different healing process.

Stop worrying about these bumps and instead try to live a more cautious and disciplined life. No socks on hard slippery floors. No quick movements.

Thanks, that's a helpful way to look at it. Should I scale way back in activity while I'm waiting for the glue to set, or is it OK to keep doing what I was doing before? Like I said above, I'm considering volunteer cross country coaching a few days a week as something to do while I'm on medical leave from school that would bring me some joy. My first day was today, I felt OK during, pretty much just watched and talked with people, but felt a little spent afterwards (almost 2 hours), but feel somewhat better after resting a bit.

The pounding of foot plants from running might be too much unless you have a very smooth and soft gait. If you are not going to be running with the team, it may be OK.

I used to run cross-country and the mile and two mile. Loved it. My best was 9:12 for a two mile. Those were the days.