Hi Mark:
Yes, an apple, carrot and many fruits contain natural fructose, but the fiber eaten from the fruit allows your body to take up the sugar at a slower pace.

My son sustained his first concussion in May, 2010 while away at a retreat - falling full force backwards onto his head. We were never called. Six weeks later while playing badminton, he fell to the ground returning a shot and thus began full blown post concussive symptoms. Two months later, he fell onto his forearms playing and he was almost back to the beginning with symptoms. In Feb 2011, he had a door opened into the occipital part of his head and his symptoms were incredible. His visual processing and auditory symptoms were exponential. He missed a month of school and also suffers from occipital neuralgia as well. Without going into additional detail, he still suffers from extreme visual and auditory processing difficulties, word finding, etc. He is very brave and courageous to be living with with adult pain and symptoms at an age where he should be living large.

I continue to rack what's left of my brain, but it was so long ago (35 years ago). The chronic fatigue, headaches, muscle pain. The symptoms may have started immediately after the accident, or may have not manifested for a year post. I really don't remember. What makes it tough, besides the memory defect, is I sort of grew up with that "real men don't discuss their health problems" attitude. So I myself was in denial of PCS symptoms for many years.

I do know it was not longer than a year, since shortly post-trama I started on a pre-med degree. I held straight As for two semesters, then eveything went to hell.

My symptoms started to show up about 3 weeks after the accident. Of course, by that time, I was off meds and I could tell I felt different. I was constantly fatigued. I also forced myself a little too much. All this time passed and me without a neurologist. Only recently did I get one. August 17th was the day of the accident.

This sounds so much like me in the first couple of weeks...

One of my main symptoms was a lack of awareness, so in the months that followed, I lived in a horribly confusing, frustrating, and distressing world; but I couldn't process what was going on - or even that it was abnormal. I was only aware of each moment as it was happening. "Waking up" began to dawn about 3 months in.

Alcohol...
 

It's amazing how little the doctors and nurses at the hospital tell you before they discharge you. The discharge nurse didn't even give me a checklist when leaving making sure I didn't do the things which can prolong recovery. Especially alcohol. It's crazy.

The doctor that discharged me from the hospital told me not to drink for 4-6 weeks. I started drinking regularly after 6 weeks, because I thought I was all better. Then in September I got smacked in the face with symptom after symptom.

I believe that drinking so much after that 6th week is what brought on my symptoms and prolonged my recovery. Wish I would have never started drinking...

My symptoms appeared within an hour of my injury...which was very, very frightening for me. Of all I can recall about that day, this is what I would like to forget about the most....
I began to feel dizzy, then I was speaking...but it was if I was listening to someone else because the words didn't make sense..."word salad"...
When I realized it was me, I began to cry...
That lasted for months...one day, I felt like I had just "woken up"...that was 2months after my injury...this has been very rollercoaster like for me...when I feel good, it's good (not great, my deficits are still present though somewhat manageable with rest)...when I'm bad...well, it's awful...nothing seems to alleviate the symptoms...not even rest...:(

I have a similar story regarding alcohol. I think Mark said that there is actually not much formal evidence that alcohol is harmful - sure enough a big, expensive and up to date neuro rehab book I am currently reading does not even have alcohol in the index, despite going into great detail about the effects of all sorts of different substances, foods, hormones etc.

If it is really the case that people like us aren't being told about this because of a lack of research then some needs to be done pronto, since alcohol seems to have had such an obvious and hugely detrimental effect on so many of us, which we have had to work out by trial and error and to our own great cost.

Like it! Sorry to hear about your troubles, hang in there...