NeuroTalk Support Groups - Susceptibility to Re-Injury

Hi all,

After a few weeks of browsing through all the wonderfully helpful threads you guys have generated over the years, I decided finally to register and ask the one question that I'm not sure was ever resolved here...

So, a little bit about myself: I'm a hypochondriacal university student who suffered an initial concussion at the age of 10. I was asymptomatic a few days following the event, but my mom tells me that I couldn't recognize the contents of my pocket as my own personal effects immediately following the incident. And even though the CT scan came up clear, it must have been decently severe.

I didn't experience any issues over the next 12 years of my life with regards to concussion symptoms—despite the fact that I vividly recall bashing my head a few times.

Anyway, on September 28 of last year, I woke up in the hospital. The prior night had involved a disgusting amount of drinking, and I'm still not certain to this day if my lack of memory regarding that night had been a consequence of my complete and total intoxication or what I've since determined to have been an mTBI.

At any rate, I left the hospital without a formal diagnosis of concussion, slept the entirety of the day, and woke up at around midnight with a full array of concussion symptoms. Nausea, vertigo, concentration issues, inability to do homework, restlessness—I had it all. Also I noticed that a rather large bruise was developing on the left side of my head. Yup, something had probably knocked me out.

So—naturally—I rested. No, I hibernated. Skipping classes and the like, I made sure not to subject myself to any sort of cognitive strain. And even though a really nasty case of tinnitus set in a few days post-injury, all (!) of my symptoms resolved by the end of the week. I was totally healed! Yay! Everything would be okay, right? ... Right?

Stupid me. I started going out again a month later—drinking, smoking cigars... I indulged in pretty much all the (speciously) innocuous vices that college has to offer.

Then it happened again. I don't know what triggered my next "episode," but two months following my initial injury, I woke up in the same exact predicament. I had been, once again, utterly wasted the night before.

But I recovered in accordance with the same timeframe as before! All was fine again! Right?

No. Stupid(er) me. At any rate, it took three more of these "predicaments" for me to realize that I was seriously harming myself.

And I started to realize that my head was seriously sensitive to minor bumps—not in the way that many of you have described—but, when subjected to a critical amount of (de)acceleration, my brain relapses to its post-concussive state.

I started to correlate the occurrence of minor bumps with my subsequent concussive events. What's interesting is that the severity and kinds of symptoms I develop seem to be highly associated with the exact spatial location at which I receive trauma. For example, a light bump to the hippocampal region caused the onset of only insomnia... I did not present with any other symptoms! On the other hand, a significant impact to my forehead caused only brain fog and concentration issues. Weird. What's even more strange, however, is the fact that the symptoms always take a week to fade beyond perception.

One ugly and glaring correlation that I stubbornly refused to recognize until recently, however, was that between alcohol and re-injury. Either my drunkenness was making me clumsy and thus more likely to whack my head, or my intoxication was triggering some kind of physiological process that makes relatively minor bumps more damaging. As a chemistry major, I thought I'd do a little bit of research into the literature... and, unfortunately, BOTH explanations appear to hold weight. (I'll post another thread).

Needless to say, I've been sober for a month and don't plan on drinking for the foreseeable ever.

Now, I said there was a question here, and I should really be getting to it. Sub-concussive jolts have, in the past, not affected my mental state in the slightest... but now, after having sustained five significant traumatic events over a period of only one year (!), I think they might be taking a significant toll on both my mental stamina and acuity.

These minor bumps don't seem to cause any immediate effects, but—after an hour or two—I'll experience a light brain-fog and an uncomfortable level of heat around my face/scalp. These "symptoms" tend to persist for maybe a few hours and then subside. But, as I've written above, I'm absurdly hypochondriacal, and these sensations may simply be my own subconscious doing.

Now, the question: will I ever be able to hit my head again without developing symptoms? And when I say hit, I mean in a significant sense—could I ever be punched in the face without consequence? Would weekly minor bumps (a pat on the heat, a minor blow to the jaw during sex) prevent my recovery in a quantitive manner?

Also, I've noticed that my recovery period has increased in duration since the first incident, and that complete resolution has transformed from an overnight process into one involving a few days of infinitesimal and incremental changes. The first episode, which triggered by far the worst symptoms, lasted exactly one week. Just prior to its end, I was still experiencing balance issues and having trouble concentrating... but then two days later, I was able to complete with ease the cognitive marathon that universities deceptively call a "lab report." Contrast this timeline with that of a more recent incident: even though I presented with only two minor symptoms, they required slightly longer than a week to resolve, and I experienced a few "bad days" in the week following.

The question: am I now at the point where another head injury could result in permanent symptoms? Mark from Idaho once termed our brain's capacity to heal a finite resource—and if so, is this capacity related to susceptibility to re-injury?

It's just so strange because, at the time of writing, I'm asymptomatic... just as I've been for the past 46 of 52 weeks. I've read that many of you have simply found ways to deal with it, and that no, the sensitivity has remained permanent.

But I'd really like to hear of any success stories out there, if there are any—have any of you beaten your susceptibilities to re-injury?

I used to be that guy who dashes through life and loves every moment of it—always taking risks, always engaging in high-intensity, high-adrenaline activities—but recently I don't know who I am anymore. Now that I'm forced to be forever cautious, it feels as if I've been robbed of my passion for experiencing things as they're meant to be experienced. It's just crushingly depressing to think that I may never be able even to hug someone without being awkwardly protective about my head.

I also recognize that many of you would kill to be completely rid of your symptoms and that I may seem to be splitting irrelevant hairs, and for this I sincerely apologize.

Thanks for your time!