Hello All,

I am new to both injury and the forum. Had a fall 10 days ago. Hit the back of my head on pavement. Spent 3 days in the hospital. Severe vertigo initially and after 3 days realized I cannot smell a thing.

Thankful that I was not injured worse but would really like to be able to smell things. Anyone else have this problem and more importantly, can you offer me hope that it will return when the brain swelling subsides?

Still dizzy with quick changes in position and have a "full" feeling in my head. MD reported that I had contusions in front and back of skull.

Thanks,

Yanky

Hi Yanky,

I don't know if there is a clear-cut answer to your question. I lost almost all of my sense of smell with my TBI. I can still smell a few things. Bleach, nitric gas, mowed lawns, and patchouli. Yuck At least the severity of the scents has weakened a lot! That's the only good part of it in my opinion.

Best wishes to you ~ and welcome to Neuro Talk!

Shez

Yanky,

The recovery of smell functions are hard to predict. The more important functions to be concerned about are your cognitive/memory functions. I would give up all smell functions to get my cognitive skills back.

I doubt you have any serious swelling at this point. It would be dangerous for the hospital to release you if you still had swelling. Swelling can cause severe brain stem damage and lead to death.

The injury you suffered is called a coupe-contra-coupe concussaion. The brain bounced from the back of your skull to the front of your skull getting traumatized at both ends of the movement.

From now on, you need to avoid any activites that may put you at risk of a head impact. No contact sports, especially competitive soccer. No heading a soccer ball ever. Wear a quality, well fitted helmet for any bike riding, skiing, snowboarding, etc.

It would be interesting to see your hospital records. What symptoms did you manifest for those three days? Slurred speach, memory difficulties, absence seizures (getting spaced out and lost) can all be indicative of what kind of injury yoiur brain suffered. You will likely have some residual difficulties in these areas for the rest of your life, especially during times of serious stress, either physical or emotional.

Don't be scared. Just be cautious.

My best to you.

I'm new to the forum as well and still navigating through all of the information trying to find something helpful for my son...looks like I came to the right place...just have to find a starting point. He suffered a concussion in July and has many of the symptoms discussed in the threads/posts, etc. One of which is he also lost his sense of smell and the sense of taste along with it. Some say both could take months to return, some say never. I'm still hoping for the months. So I don't have an answer either, but certainly an understanding of the frustration. I had no idea concussions caused so many long term problems!