Any advice or help welcome
 

Hi everyone,

I sustained my first concussion when I was 18 in a bad snowboarding accident. It took me about 9/10 months to recover from the initial accident but I fully recovered. I am now currently 22 years old and am a senior in college. In those 4 years I have suffered many blows to the head. I have lost count of how many concussions I have had... maybe 6-8. However, unlike my first one, they all resolved very quickly with the worst being around 2 weeks. Some only gave headaches for 2/3 days.

Unfortunately, however, a little over a month ago I sustained another concussion that hasn’t healed yet. I am worried about this one and how long the Process will be. I am also worried about the long term effects of all of these hits to the head.

In the past 6 months, even before the most recent concussion, I have noticed some cognitive problems. I feel like I constantly lose my train of thought, forget peoples names, and find socializing harder. I noticed school has gotten harder as well, but I am about to graduate with an engineering degree so it has been difficult along the way.

I start my first job in engineering in July. I am worried I am not going to be able to perform to my best ability. This most recent concussion has made my anxiety about the future debilitating. When will I stop hitting my head? Will I ever fully heal? Am I at risk for CTE? To put it bluntly, I am very scared.

Are you doing risky activities, where head injury might happen still?

Lance,

You should be scared. You are entering a career that puts high demand on cognitive processing. You should look at activities that risk a head impact as possibly career ending.

You have been operating with false information about concussions. None of your concussions resolved complete. Only the most obvious symptoms resolved. Headaches are only one of many concussion symptoms. If you had a headache for 2 or 3 days, that was a relatively serious trauma to your brain. Many concussions never have any headache at all. Most of mine did not.

Look up the term half-life or exponential decay. Consider every concussion has a timeline similar to a half life. Now, consider the obvious symptoms create that half life term but with concussions, that term is more like a 10th life or 1/4 life. When you think you have recovered, your brain has only recovered by 1/10th to 1/4th. It is took 2 weeks for that first period and 1/10th is amount of recovery; at 4 weeks you brain has healed 1.9/10th (1/10th plus 10% of the remainder); at 6 weeks, your brain has healed 2.7/10ths; at 8 weeks, your brain has healed 3.3/10ths; at 12 weeks, your brain has healed 3.97/10ths; at 14 weeks, your brain has healed 4.6/10ths.

I hope that as an engineer, you can understand that healing from each impact is a long declining process with overlap that accumulates.

Whether you develop CTE, nobody can say. You may just lose some cognitive functions and remain stable. The CTE scientists are still mystified by how some develop CTE and others suffer many more concussions and do not develop CTE.

I have suffered more than 14 concussions since 1965. My cognitive decline has been in steps with each impact. A concussion at 15 and another at 19 caused serious academiccognitive challenges. At 66, age appears to be causing some decline. I was stable for the years from 2000-2013 after a trauma in 2000.

With the declines I experienced in my earlier years, I was able to practice cognitive focus and regained many skills. I like to do mental calculations. I have to put more effort into focusing and ignoring distractions. I don't do it as well as I used to but when I was in my teens and early 20, I could practice cognitive focus skills and regain them. I had to do mental math at my McDonald's job because we did not have computer or similar 'add up the sale' registers.

So, change your risk behavior. Read the Vitamins sticky at the top. Learn how to get your brain to focus. Learn how to practice brain health. Learn how to moderate stress, including physical, nutritional, emotional, and cognitive. Stress will be your enemy. The injured brain will manifest more struggles during times of stress.

Alcohol and other mind modifying substances need to be carefully considered. A single serving of alcohol per day/event is considered a limit.

Sleep, meaning quality sleep, not necessarily quantity sleep, will be important. Sleep at consistently regular hours. Sleeping in does not make up for missed sleep for a stressed brain.

Feel free to tell us more about the specific struggles you may have.

Thank you Mark. Cutting risky behaviors out is one thing that I need to do. I was a big drinker in college and I’m sure that is contributing reason to why my concussions never healed.

I have since moved back home and will finish my last semester virtually. I’m hoping starting work and living a professional life will decrease many of the risks that have caused these blows to the head. I will definitely look into the vitamin regiment. Thank you for the help!