Hello all,

I found this forum through a google search re: PCS (yay google, right?). My situation may not be as serious as some of the other threads I read through but I could really use some words of wisdom/hope as of late.

Anyway here is my situation. I suffered very mild TBI on 12/20/09.

I felt immediately dizzy. There was no loss of consciousness in this case and I seemed to recover from the dizziness within two or three minutes. However I began to suffer from (what I didn't know at the time) PCS. When I would lay on my back for a few minutes, the dizziness would return. I chalked it up to feeling tired or worn out.

Then about three weeks later, I took an approx. 8 foot fall, hitting my head on concrete.

Again, I felt immediately dizzy and nauseous. Still no loss of consciousness. This time, however, the dizziness didn't subside. After finishing the match I stumbled around back stage for 10 minutes or so, trying to re-orient myself. The promoter noticed the condition I was in and called his gf over (shes a very nice RN) to take a look at me.

Upon inspection, she advised me to go home, stay up for a few hours then try to get some sleep, though to be woken every few hours. She added if I began to vomit I would need to go to the ER and get checked out.

Low and behold, a few seconds after she said this, I leaned over and began to vomit (fun ). My wife took me to the ER where I had a CT scan done. The scan came up negative for any bleeding, tumors, swelling, etc. They gave me antivert and sent me home.

It has been about three months now, and I am trying to get back into the swing of things. Training, weights, cardio, etc. I do really well with the weights and cardio, however, I still get dizzy spells when trying to train in-ring. The dizzy spells are usually very mild and go away within a few minutes.

I am concerned that I will not be able to return to doing the thing I love to do. I have wanted to wrestle professionally for quite some time now. My short career was really beginning to pick up steam when I suffered this set-back. I am really just looking for advice/words of hope in this case. I don't know what I would do with myself if I had to give up entertaining. Wrestling has been my dream and my main driving goal for far too long.

There is an open tryout for WWE coming up in June. I really want to be able to participate. Is this out of the question?



Please forgive my sob story. I know there are individuals out there who suffer from PCS FAR, FAR worse than myself and I don't mean to be "that guy" who scraped his knee and cries about it. Thank you for reading (if you made it this far) and I will be very appreciative of any advice anyone can offer.

Answer: basically nothing.
So take this advice with a pinch of salt.
From what I have read the consistent advice for all sports is:
Don't return to play until your symptoms have completely gone.

Now I do know something about postconcussion syndrome having had it and I would say that any risk of doing yourself permanent damage is not worth it.
If you get another injury when you are still recovering it is liable to be much worse. You might not be able to recover at all. Then you are basically screwed.

Can you use a padded helmet when you wrestle?

I would be really careful about anything that could make your injury worse.
Sounds like you don't have it too bad and you might make a complete recovery. That means no symptoms at all.
That would be when I would consider going back to wrestling. But please yourself. You don't have to give it up for life, just till you are sure that you aren't going to completely mess your life up for the sake of not waiting a few extra months. You would sure regret it if you took another hit, believe me. My opinion.
CS

Thank you.

Upon reading more and more threads in this forum I came to the same conclusion. Thank you, that is all I needed to hear.

Wrestler,

Read up on snowboarder Kevin Pearce. He suffered a second concussion three weeks after a previous concussion.

You are already a part of the Multiple Impact Syndrome crowd. This means that each successive impact (concussion or even sub-concussion) will cause more damage from an even lighter impact. You experience with in-ring training is proof of this.

You have a very important decision to make. How do you want to live the last years (decades) of your life? Do you want to have lose cognitive functions? Do you want to struggle to remember names (kids, grandkids)? Do you want to lose your ability to drive? Do you want a much higher risk of Alzheimer's Disease and/or Parkinson's Disease?

In simple terms, do you want to live like Muhammad Ali or the many retired NFL players who have severe dementia in their 40's?

I strongly doubt these were your first concussions. You are likely well into the Multiple Impact Syndrome progression.

Even when you feel like you have recovered fully, you have not. Go on-line to www.Positscience.com and www.lumosity.com and do the free games. Lumosity has a seven day free pass to their full program. Do the full assessment and report back with your scores. We can then compare notes. WWW.ImPACTTest.com has an online test you can take if you know of a local specialist that can receive the report. It is best when used to set a baseline and then taken after a concussion.

Ask you wife to do some on-line research on concussions and NFL and also Kevin Pearce. Suggest she read up on being a caregiver to a person with a brain injury. Amazon has plenty of books for caregivers.

You can also do some research into the marriage statistics of brain injury people. Many if not most marriages do not survive the personality changes and other behavioral changes that come with Post Concussion Syndrome.

You are still early in the syndrome. It will only get worse. Your brain is already telling you that it does not have a strong tolerance for impacts.

The big question should be, Which future concussion will change your life forever? Which concussion will cause you to lose all opportunities to earn a living?

Maybe you can buy a long term disability insurance policy that will support you in your later years. Be forewarned that Social Security Disability Income pays you enough to qualify for Food Stamps and all of the other poverty assistance programs. Not much more.

I must inform you that I am a trained professional wrestler. I don't know if the news has reached you out there in Idaho yet, but what I do is a fake sport, involving fake violence. I, along with many others have trained for years how to do this safely and properly. Yes, there is the occasional fluke in which someone will get hurt. But then again people get hurt every day doing things like getting out of their shower (no offense to anyone injured in a shower related incident).


I wish you all the speediest of recoveries.

All my best,
-John

hi john
we get many folks with sport related head injury's and your not the first Wrestleguy we have had, so can I safely say that head injury is an occupational hazard, huh !

Now the term PCS is probably the wrong word for what, in fact is MTBI mild brain damage . and it is cumulative, recovery can seem to be full , but it just feels,that it is,

now the brain dose not repair its self. a more correct term is it reorganizes, new neurons do not form in sufficient numbers , to replace damaged structures, now for a word of wisdom, imagine being stuck in the world, in the moments , just after you hit the deck, with no hope of recovery. period

thats the risk you are taking , it may never happen, bud, and believe you me, none of us would take any pleasure in saying I told you so