How do you handle the stress of new bumps?
 

Hi lovely people on this forum! :)


Do you have any suggestions on how to handle the stress of new head bumps? I've had a couple of concussions in my life that left me feeling like hell for months and now that I am finally feeling better, every small bump to my head gets me near suicidal because I dread suffering through that horrible experiences again.

Today I accidentally bumped my head on the armthing on my sofa while lying down, it hit my ear and now there is some pain in my temple, a little nausea and LOTS of fear and anxiety. I am convinced gave myself another concussion, but praying I didn't. I have another chronic illness and trying to heal from that and getting these head injuries is such a heavy burden on me.

How do you handle these types of events, cause no matter how cautious I am, these things happen from time to time. It is so hard for me to tell if the hit is hard enough to give me a concussion or not and the hours or days after are just hell. :(

Do you have any ideas like how to tell if the hit is a concussion, if you can just ignore it, what to do IF it is a new concussion etc?

I don't even try to classify the hit as a concussion or not. It is a losing game. It's a bump to the head. They happen. The anxiety of trying to classify the bump is just as damaging. Worrying about the future is also a losing battle.

Your nausea can be due to the anxiety or a vestibular issue or ?????

I've been dealing with this issue/risk for 40 years. Try to just take some reasonable precautions and go on with your life.

Mark made a great point! I'm going to copy and paste what I just posted on another thread! I used to have this problem with thinking every bump is a concussion. Like Mark said, they happen. My number one thing is learn how to control your anxiety and stress. Breathing and meditation are huge. They seem airy fairy, but once you actually try them and notice that they actually do help a lot and have many health benefits, then you wont criticize them.

I've dealt with this too! I got better than tried biking and came down on a curve to the road =didnt fall- I had gotten up to the point of walking fast, doing quick movements and even able to shoot hoops and jump an inch or so off the ground. then it got worse after the bike thing. Now it's up and down, but I'm almost positive the nerves in my neck are a very big issue. I can't say how much, but I know a bit. I'll explain that below, but here are a few tips.

1) Sneezing- tilt your head forward and squat down or come down with the sneeze. Then you don't have a quick jerk motion.

2) Keep anxiety and stress out as much as possible. I found most of my headaches were completely or got worse from tension headaches. I was so dang worried about things happening that they got worse. I highly suggest learning how to deep breath and learn how to stay calm in stressful situations. Listen to a guided meditation or deep breathing video to start!

3) When your head is sensitive, take things slow. Avoid doing activities that may agrivate your head for a while. Try to remain calm and not stressed about being slow.

So the nerve stuff. I've noticed that if I tickle my arm or heel or anywhere, those spots cause a weird feeling in my head. That makes me think nerves have to be an issue. Once I realized this, actually, a lot of my headaches got better because I was so stressed.

So what can you do?

1) Make sure you sleep where your neck is straight. Preferably on your back or if you can't then on your side with a pillow that keeps your neck inline.

2) I actually avoided moving my neck too much for a while and it is really stiff. Logically, that makes sense. Things atrophy. recently, I've been moving my neck slowly in different directions. This has helped a lot actually. Be careful, though! Don't push it.

3) Massage helps in the neck and shoulders, but again, don't push it. Be light. If the nerves are pinched or damaged, then you don't want to aggravate them.

4) Maybe a chiropractor would help? It helped me. Then I stopped going after I had the bike incident and got worse this summer. Now I'm back again. After the first adjustment, symptoms were a bit better for my eye pain. If you do go, make sure the chiropractor is gentle. Perhaps a chiro that does the activator method would be better?

5) If you're around any practitioners that have a PEMF machine, maybe talk to one of them. It's a machine that sends pulsed electro-magnetic fields. It helped my migraines and neck a while ago. Haven't had a migraine since. He did it on my neck and head. Each additional appt. I was able to do a higher frequency which he said meant my tissue was healing.

In the mean time, stay careful and try to keep building that threshold. The longer you can stay away from a setback, the more you'll be able to keep tolerating.

Praying for you and everyone else! Keep hanging in there! Things will get better!