Hey Zach,

Glad you found this forum. It has really helped me to know there are others who understand what this is like and has been a wealth of information. I don't think my pain was quite as severe as yours, but all the other symptoms I can relate to. It is really hard to be patient with all this, especially when it is so hard to control emotions. I never would have thought that smacking my head into a beam would lead to this! My injury was just a silly accident when I was working outside my house. I'm at about 7 months and have improved a lot, but still have a ways to go to be back to pre-PCS life. Hopefully, you'll heal a lot quicker because you're young. It may not seem like it, but if you give yourself time to heal, in the long run it won't matter as much if you missed out on a few things or are behind in school. Being better and actually able to handle college matters the most, not when you apply. I know it's hard not to be able to do what you want and what your friends are doing, it still drives me nuts! I've found it isn't worth it to overextend and is better to be conservative in deciding what I can handle. Try to remember that your injury is no less real because it isn't visible and don't be afraid to remind others as needed. Maybe you could get your family to look at some of the resources on brain injury you can find online, it might help them be more understanding, unless they are educated they aren't going to "get it". This is hard for them too. There are previous threads on this, I don't remember the sources but I know they are available and helpful. You'll get good advice on this forum. Treat yourself gently, get good nutrition (good threads on this also), rest a lot, don't try to "push through it" it doesn't work with this type of injury. I wish you a speedy recovery, but in the meantime, just hang in there!

Becca

Becca

THANK YOU!
A lot of what you said was just what i needed to hear. This is just such a struggle for me because i\'ve always been the kind of person who does just that, \"pushes through it\". Being able to have this support though is great, thanks again!

Zach

Hey, Zach! My daughter (16 years old) received her head injury 8 1/2 months ago. She had lots of the same symptoms as you. Lots of headaches, nauseated for 4 straight months, couldn't read for 3 months, couldn't exercise, noise/light sensitivity, concentration and memory issues, etc. She is a sophomore and missed volleyball, basketball, and track this year.

Around the 6 month mark we saw a great improvement in her cognitive abilities (memory, processing and retaining new information). Around 7 months we noticed that the fatigue lifted A LOT.

I'm happy to say that right now she is down to very occassional, short "zapper" headaches, very occassional nausea. She still gets overwhelemed by too much stimulus much faster than she would have pre-injury. She is prone to anxiety attacks which she never had before that I know of.

As for treatment, she was on Elavil for about 5 months and recently tapered off of that. She did a very slow return to exercise (started at 2 minutes on the eliptical machine). She is now able to run outside for 20 minutes or more at a time. None of her doctors felt her symptoms were bad enough to warrant any type of vision therapy, LENS, etc. We pay a lot of attention to diet (high protein, low sugar, low caffeine, high fruit/vegetable). She takes 1,000 fish oil but is fairly resistant to any other vitamins. We are working on it

She told me recently that she "tests" her brain all the time and has done so since the beginning. For example, our eye doc has one of those screen savers that shows a set of 8 pictures and then repeats. She would watch it and then look away and memorize what order the pictures were in (i.e. purple flower, monkey, barn, etc.). I didn't realize she had been doing this. Not sure if it helped or not, but it made her feel better when she started remembering things easier.

As for school, we requested some informal accomodations. Her teachers dropped any vocabulary tests. She listened to books on tape or I read to her. FYI most libraries have books you can download straight to your I-Pod...very cool. Her grades before were mostly A's with maybe a couple of B's - all honors classes. They went down to mostly D's, but are slowly coming back up to B's and C's. Her psychologist is going to write a formal letter that will go with her transcripts describing why she struggled this year. I can't tell you how much better she felt physically once she realized that nobody cared what her grades are this year.

She has struggled getting some of her old friends to understand why she can't do sports and why she has to rest all the time. That's a major frustration at your age. Some people take the time to understand, others won't. Try not to stress too much about that. We encouraged her to do some things she wouldn't have had time to do before, such as learning to bake, working with our dog, some crafty stuff, etc. It all seemed pretty lame before, but she is learning some fun new stuff and forming an identity outside of sports.

If I knew what I know now at the one-month mark I would do a few things differently. Mainly I would force her to rest more and I would put greater restrictions on "screen time" (texting, TV, computer). I might have even pulled her out of school for that first semester completely. It's hard to say how much difference any of things we did or didn't do had on her recovery to this point. I would have focused on removing stress a lot more aggressively.

As for the future, I have a list of tests/treatments to go over with her neuro in June depending on how she feels at that point. We have focused on chasing down one symptom at a time to rule out any underlying complications (hormones, eyes, TMJ, etc).

The people on this forum offer great advice. Keep a log of your symptoms and talk with your docs about any of these tests or treatments that make sense to you. Other than that, try to rest and don't stress too much.

All the best-

One more thing. With respect to getting into college...this is becoming a major pet peeve of mine.

In addition to my sophomore daughter, I have a son who is a junior. It's incredibly frustrating to me to see the pressure put on you guys to know what you want to do, where you want to go, ACHIEVE, SUCCEED, blah, blah, blah. There are lots and lots of paths to adulthood. I would encourage you to RELAX. Rather than trying to be better, stronger, smarter, focus on becoming a well-rounded young man, especially now that you are recovering from a brain injury.

Sorry for the speech. But you should know that as I look at myself and those around me, I see very few who achieved a successful, contented life by following some strict path laid out by someone else. You WILL find your own way into adulthood.

I hold a master's degree and run my own successful business and did none of it by following a conventional path right out of high school. You will find your way.. have faith in your own journey. This injury just might offer you amazing new perspectives and lessons in life.

PCSlearner

Ive got a lot to reply to and cant seem to remember it! Ha ha! OOO I can scroll down and read what you wrote while im replying!!! sweet, you learn new things every day! hahaha! anyway...

I cant wait to be able to exercise again!!! It must feel SO good to be able to run! Oh, i had a question, i eat very healthy but i was wondering would caffeine help the headaches like it does migraines? Does anyone know?

These \"tests\" you describe that she has been doing on her brain sound exactly like what they have me doing at speech therapy! I know how she feels about school, it is just very scary. Every class i\'am currently taking right now is either AP, or advanced too! Its good she was able to get them back up ! im afraid i will not have time considering the semester ends in about 3 and a half weeks here.

As for screen time i 100% agree!!! I watch absolutely no T.V. and stopped playing all games. The only reason i look at a screen is to get on NeuroTalk.

PLEASE, dont apologize for that speech, i LOVED it! Im tired of it all being shoved down our throats all the time! You are RIGHT i just need to relax or im not going to get better!

I\'m so glad your daughter is doing pretty well. Tell her i hope she is 100% soon, from on PCS patient to another! Thank you!

Zach

Hey zach-

I am also fairly new to the forum. I found this place about three weeks ago, and it has seriously been the best thing that has happened to me since I had my concussion. It's been so theraputic to talk to other people who are going through the same thing- and NO you're not crazy! There are actually other people out there going through exactly what you are!

I'm a senior in college and have had to deal with going to school and my symptoms. I got my concussion last october and sporadically missed school through out the semester. I took winter break as a time to come home and be on complete and total cognitive rest (basically being a vegetable). I returned back to school with some improvement but not enough. I didn't even think about what my options were, I just assumed that I had to return to school and deal.

After meeting with my coaches (i'm on the lacrosse team here) a 2 months into the semester they reprimended me for not doing "everything I could" to get better- ie, school. Truthfully, I didn't even think taking time off was a possibility- the thought never even crossed my mind! I'm a college student right? Why would it be okay for me to take off school?

Well, I ended up meeting with my professors, taking some more time off, going home for a week and I ended up taking two incompletes (I was taking five classes this semester).

My point is, taking time of from school may be the best thing for you. You can't go more than two classes a day- and highschool is almost 7 hours of straight learning! My advice to you would be to- as someone mentioned before- get your parents to read this forum, let them read the many stories/valuable advice and gain the knowledge they'll need to help you through this process. Also, seriously consider taking some time off from school- try and work something out with the administrators and your teachers.

As far as the lack of exercising, that has been probably the hardest part for me. But I will warn you- my stupidity and itch to return to play landed me where I am right now. I told my athletic trainer I was completely fine after three weeks of rest, even though I knew I wasn't, and ended up running into a metal pole. If I could only turn back time.... :-/

So anyways, my best of luck to you Zach. Hang in there.