Topic.

It took me about 3 months before I started getting symptoms. I was injured in June, took me till about early August to start feeling better. I thought I was fully recovered so I started doing normal things...working, partying and even drinking alcohol. Then BAM, in September I was smacked in the face with PCS symptoms. It seemed like every day I would wake up with a new symptom. I ended up going to the ER numerous times because of them.

I always wonder if the alcohol I was drinking when I thought I was recovered triggered the symptoms or screwed me up permanently =\... Only time will tell!

I had symptoms day one which only increased the following few weeks. I started by that foggy feeling. I was swaying on my feet and if I closed my eyes I would fall. I had head pain, neck pain and back pain. Over the following weeks my unsteadyness got worse, the headache got worse. The whooshing sound didn't start until a couple of months out.

My symptoms took a week to kick in. I then felt 100% a month later, and after a few weeks of this, like you I felt safe to get drunk. This brought a lot of my symptoms back, and a month after that a jolt at work took me back to square one.

I sometimes wonder whether if I had stayed off the booze I would have been well enough to withstand the jolt, which wasn't violent enough to be a big deal to most people.

On balance, I think if I had been told not to drink, and to continue this for a few months even when I felt fine I think my PCS would have been over in one month rather than 9 and counting.

Yet even the simple piece of advice 'don't drink alcohol' was beyond the knowledge of the doctors I had seen. In fact no health professional has actually warned me against alcohol until this week, 9 months in!

You wonder what they were doing for 7 years in medical school....

I am grateful to having had a good neurologist way back in 1970 who told me to stay away from alcohol, that my concussed brain would not tolerate it.

The research is sparse except for the research that says a single drink per day may be OK.

Think of it this way. A hang over is like PCS. The brain is responding to getting assaulted with a chemical impact. It is having a reaction to the toxicity left over from the drunk period.

I tried one glass of beer while in college. It alone left me hung over the next day.

Aside from an immediate headache, blurred vision and nausia, the rest of my symptoms gradually started the next evening. For the first week I felt as if I was on some really strong cold medicine (very spaced out). I didn't actually know I had a concussion for 4 days after the accident. The Emergency Department said contusion, the work doc (4 days later) diagnosed concussion. The hard part was that no one prepared me for the cascade of symptoms that I could expect to come. I thought I was going crazy with each new issue. Strange how you can feel so unlike yourself. Glad I found this place!

Hi - My fourteen yr old son got his first major concussion when he was away with a youth group - fell full force backwards onto a wood floor - had initial dizzyness, nausea and an extreme headache - we were never called.
The next day he went straight into moving logs and doing landscaping (probably did some shearing damage at that time) He was thankful to feel good - did not experience extreme symptoms for 6 weeks. Went into full blown Post Concussion syndrome and was petrified. We did not leave the house the whole summer (2010). He has suffered 3 setbacks and is still recovering - he is extremely brave and courageous as I'm sure you all are.
As an Integrative Health and Nutrition Coach now working with MTBI survivors, alcohol is very bad for you - especially hard alcohol. Sugar really affects your brain's ability to heal and alcohol is basically fermented sugar. Google sugar and the brain.

Hope that this helps.
Warmly,

Tina Sullivan
Nourish Your Noggin

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.

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...

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.