I hope this topic isn't too silly.

I've been doing well, I guess. Been taking a vitamin regiment and being easy. Today during Easter though we were over at my family's and my girlfriend wanted a tour of the woods. I didn't think much of it at the time. We went on the golfcart and drove around the trails for fifteen minutes.

About a half an hour after (around 2:30) until now (9:00) I've been dizzy and nauseous ever sense. Am I going to trigger a concussion or am I now just, thanks to PCS, more susceptible to motion sickness?

Eddy,

Both, the bumpy ride may have just been too much motion for a PCS brain. Or you may have caused a decompensation (relapse). I cannot handle bumpy roads at all. A trick I use when I know the road will be bumpy is to sit forward so that my back is not against the seat back. Then, there is an amazing amount of bump energy absorption by the body when the back is able to flex and move. I do this same thing on shaky roller coasters, you know, the old wooden ones.

I have a problem with motion sickness that I never had before. After my 11th concussion, I started getting miserably sea sick when I went deep sea fishing. I had never had this problem before. We call if "barking at the seals."

I have never heard any physiological explanation for this sudden motion sickness symptom but is is not uncommon.

This will likely be one of the problems that you will have to learn to strive to avoid.

Early in my last concussion, I went for a ride in the country with my wife driving. My head was on a swivel as I looked back and forth at the wild life and other scenery. My decomp was so severe it took me almost a week to get back to normal. The symptoms were not very apparent during the drive. They got worse after the drive.

Live and learn. That is how we go on.

Great question, EddysHead! Remind me how far out are you from your original injury?

I'm trying to understand the difference between creating a new concussion through some previously harmless activity (i.e. riding golf cart) and decompensation.

Is a decompensation a temporary return of symptoms? Or are you actually causing the brain more injury (a new concussion)?

My daughter has experienced this at least twice (recently hit her head getting in a car, exercising too hard in the early stages). Do these events get added to her total number of concussions?

Also, is there a timeframe where the majority of people stop having decompensations?

Is there a way to know beforehand if some activity might cause one (i.e. rollercoaster rides or boat rides)?

PCS,

A decompensation would be when she exercise to hard or otherwise stresses her brain and symptoms return. When she bumps her head getting in the car, I would consider this to be an new concussion, albeit, a concussion due to her brain being very sensitive to even mild trauma. A term that is beginning to be used is sub-concussive impact or event.

The time frame for an end to decompensations would be entirely personal. It would be very difficult to put a time to it due to the individual nature of concussions.

In your daughter's case, the primary focus should be reducing the risk of a subsequent concussion or decompensation.

She should be lead toward an understanding of some lifestyle changes to minimize the risk of multiple impacts and stresses than cause a decompensation. It will be hard for her to project into the future, but if she looks back, she will begin to notice the cause and effect of stress.

For example, she may notice that intense study and taking an exam may leave her struggling for a while afterward. Attending a loud music concert may leave her with after effects. She may need help with the observations of her struggles. She will likely go on ignoring the symptoms of a decompensation. As her mom, you may notice the subtle changes in behavior, lack of attention, a change in her eyes, etc.

Decompensations can be self fulfilling. The more one has, the more frequent they become. The efforts to reduce the stresses that cause them will be very worthwhile in the long run.

It takes some very truthful introspection to catalog the stresses that cause decompensations. I would categorize a roller coaster ride that causes symptoms to be a concussion. The sea sickness would just be a decomp. A loud rock concert would be a decomp. Dancing hard at a rock concert would likely be a concussion.

These risks can be moderated without having to shut down her life. Some activities can be replaced with others, like replacing loud music with other styles that are less problematic. There will be choices she will have to make, at least eventually. The youth culture promotes a lot of activities and behaviors that are not beneficial to a stable life, whether one has PCS or not. For example, she could replace some of the more aggressive activities with dance or ballet. Ballet is a lot more challenging that it appears.

I hope this helps.

My best to you,

I'm interested with subsequent concussions, do these cause even further brain damage? Do these new concussions take an even longer time to heal?

A concussion as I understand it refers to impact that causes brain injury and subsequent conussive symptoms. But for a PCS brain, a mild bump to the head that presumably wouldn't cause any considerable physical damage, may result in a return or worsening of symptoms due to the brain's sensitivity. Does this indicate significant new damage, or more that a very small amount of damage added to the original damage that caused the PCS in the first place results in a worsening of symptoms.

And how does this differ from other triggers that don't involve jolting movements, such as light excercise causing diziness? Is this causing damage?