I'm so scared
 

Hello all. I'm new here. Not sure where to post this, but it seems relevant enough.
Let me start with what I believe was my first concussion. A couple years ago I was working out with one of those rubber tubes with handles at the ends. I would attach a caribeaner to the center and,say, a chain link fence.
Well, all I had was a gate. Long story short, the caribeaner slipped off the gate as I outstretched my arms and hit me square in the back of the head. My ear rang and I saw silver streaks in my vision but that was about all.
Flash forward to a few weeks ago, a coworker jokingly tried to slam a door on my arm... Only he hit my head. I didn't experience any symptoms (that I know of), but ever since then I've been experiencing crippling anxiety of whether it was a concussion. Reading articles about permanent damage from only one or two hits was enough to scare me big time, especially since I'm about to start college. I do score very poorly on online memory tests, but I don't know if it was caused by that door hit or if I've always been that way. Mostly I'm afraid of living a normal life.

What do you guys think? Am I paranoid? Could I really have a concussion without any symptoms?
Thanks in advance

DiverDown,

Welcome to NeuroTalk.

It sounds like you are just having struggles with anxiety. You would have experienced concussion symptoms if you suffered a concussion.

The online memory test is not of much use as a diagnostic. If you spent some time practicing that test, you would likely bring your score up.

Which test did you use ?

I think you should consider seeking professional counsel regarding your anxiety issues. Starting college is not a good time to be experiencing anxiety issues. Your stress load is only going to increase. Learning some techniques to reduce your anxiety will be a big help.

My best to you.

Thanks for the response, Mark.
I actually used two tests. One was a website called "human benchmark". It compares your results with peers.
The other (and probably more accurate) test I took was actually an app called "fit brains"; this one told me my short term memory is better than a whopping 16% of my peers.

If you were able to get accepted into college, your brain is working fine.

I've played with Fit Brains. I'm not impressed. Human benchmark is similar. There are plenty of variables that can influence your scores.

If you did not have access to this online information about concussions and memory skills, you would not have this anxiety. There needs to be a new term, cyber anxiety. That would be the anxiety from being able to find too much information that can be taken out of context. With smart phones and laptops enabling us to look up everything, it is easy to find a scary explanation for just about any event. Just think, nobody posts about the many thousands of times where that same event did not end up a catastrophe.

For example "Reading articles about permanent damage from only one or two hits was enough to scare me big time, especially since I'm about to start college." Yes, a very small number of people do experience permanent brain damage for just one or two concussions. But, research suggests there are a few million concussions reported to a doctor each year. There are likely many times that many never reported. The concussions with lasting damage are using suffered in violent car wrecks.

You have a greater risk riding in a car or crossing the street or worse yet, climbing a ladder. If you want to have a safe college experience, stay away from alcohol. The college years are made dangerous by alcohol.

I'd suggest you look at health risk statistics to put this in perspective but then you would be afraid to leave the house. I've done research into health and death statistics. Getting a concussion with lasting symptoms does not even make the list.

So, go on and live your life. Life is too short to live it in anxiety.

I love these posts Mark - they are very helpful and informative. Keep them coming.

Cyber Anxiety is a very real thing. It's just too tempting to search online when you're stuck inside for hours on end. Almost every time without fail it makes the situation worse, without any constructive gains from looking.

Thanks again.
To be clear, I was accepted to college long before this whole mess

DD,

Are you saying you think the door slam event caused all of your problems ?

Any NeuroPsych will tell you that anxiety and depression can cause memory issues.

The carabiner event sounds like it would have been before your college boards.

Sure sounds like anxiety to me. Plus, anxiety can lead to depression.

Well, Mark, that door hit me in the top right and propelled my forehead directly into the door frame. I got a welt just beside my left eyebrow. I did not throw up, and I don't think I got disoriented or confused. I went to my GP two days later to be safe. She told me to touch my toes, touch my nose, stand on one foot and said "you're good, see you later." What's causing my anxiety is that I look back on the hit and think "how could that have NOT caused damage?" So now I'm micro-managing every little bump in the road, scouring for symptoms.
Am I ok?

Yes, your brain is OK. But, you need to find a way to resolve your anxiety. And stop googling every little thing that comes to mind. I'll guaranty you that unless you can get your anxiety under control, college will be a miserable experience. The first step is for you to believe that your brain is OK.

The brain has a high tolerance for short duration impacts in many cases. That would be why you did not experience any symptoms when you hit the door and frame. The carabiner incident also does not sound like a concussion. More like a point of contact contusion to your skin and maybe a bone bruise. A carabiner does not have enough mass to impart any dangerous impact force to the whole head/brain. A short intense pain can cause the symptoms you experienced without it being a concussion.

Did you ever turn in a Work Comp claim for when the co-workers did this to you ? Work Comp covers it even if it was from messing around. A WC claim might cause your boss to put a stop to such activity.

btw, Stay away from that co-worker. He sounds like an idiot and a dangerous person.

So, get on with your life. Stay away from irresponsible people. And, stop googling everything. No cyber-self-diagnosis. You'll end up a total mess with nothing truly wrong with you.

There is a book called 'Three Felonies a Day.' It is about how people often commit crimes without knowing it. Nit picking laws make it so people can be charged with crimes for doing things they thought were legal.

The same goes for health issues. If every little strange feeling and symptoms was truly a sign of disease, we would all be terminally ill or close to it.

The human body is very resilient. If we do not focus on every little issue and just move on with our lives, we will be able to look back and say, That was just life. The bumps of life are just life telling us to take a break. There is no 110% effort. That is anxiety talking. Usually, it means you are working harder at a task than you need to to get the task done. You get tired from the stress of pushing too hard. You are working at 100% and added 10% anxiety to the mix. So, slow down. Focus on living with purpose rather than like a pin ball bouncing around.

I learned a lot about life when my watch broke. Before I had a chance to replace it, I realized that it only made me anxious about time. It did not improve my productivity or ability to be on-time. I realized that there are enough clocks in the world that I did not need to be looking at my watch so often. Checking a clock a few times a day and getting a sense how time flows during the day allowed me to be on time to my customers and not be all wound up.

The same holds true for our bodies. Looking at the bigger picture is much better. There will be better days and worse days. No need to be concerned about the worse days until they become the standard. 'I woke up this morning feeling lousy.' does not mean there is something wrong. You just felt lousy. Maybe due to poor sleep. You will likely get over it. Just slow down while you feel lousy. Follow your routine and move on with the day.

I bet a lot of the anxiety experienced by people on this forum would go away or be reduced if smart phones were turned off and computers were just used for productive work. We don't need to discuss every little symptom. It's like everybody has an emoticon floating over their head that they need to keep updating as the days goes on.

Until the past decade, if there was a strange symptom, one would wait to see if it lasted. Maybe a week later, if it was still a problem, one would call the doctors' office. They might say, Come it to be checked. or Wait another week or two. If it persists, call back. My health plan in California was Kaiser. We had a saying, The wait to be seen by a doctor was part of the health plan because it was just a way for the illness to go away or the injury to heal.

They actually studied this issue. If they took away instant and cheap access to the doctors, especially Emergency Rooms and Urgent Care, most of those patients would not show in the regular clinics. All they did was create a triage system that caused some to have to wait to be seen and they made the instant access cost a bit more (copay increase of $10 or so). When people were diverted from the ER to Urgent Care by the triage nurse, they often did not want to wait an hour or longer to be seen in Urgent Care. They found that very few of these people scheduled an appointment in the regular doctors' clinics.

I think the same would be true with internet based health. Sure, it is good to get community support but are we enabling people to get better and go on with their lives or enabling them to get focused on the minor ups and down of personal health and stop living their lives ?

There is a saying, "Just because we can does not mean we should." Just because we have instant access to health information does not mean that should take control of our lives.

So, get on with your lives. Tell us how well you are doing if you want to. Tell us how, when you stopped focusing on the little issues, they seemed to fade away. This is the kind of support people who come to this forum need.

My best to you all.

Mark, I want to sincerely thank you for taking your own time to help me. I want you to know I have a therapy appointment today and I will let you all know how it goes at a later time.