[Greenbean9396]

Hello, I'm here today to talk about my concussion, hopefully to get some comfort of some sort, as I've been really down about it, even though it happened a year and a half ago. In 2010, in i believe was October, I was in gym class and was playing some 2-hand touch football. By accident, one of the kids knocked me over while I had the ball, I went down, and hit the back of my head, ( the ground was frozen/cold because I live in Connecticut), but i didn't black out or anything. Anyways, about a class later, I got an excruciating migraine and went home. For about a week, i was constantly vomiting until I went to the doctors, There the doctor and my mother found out they i slammed my head (because i didn't think that was the problem) And the doctor told us to instantly go to the Hospital and get a MRI. I got the MRI, and i had no internal bleeding, so they said i had a concussion. At that point, I was pretty dizzy, vomiting on a daily basis, still had the migraine, constantly tired, couldn't concentrate and such. Soon after, I had a concussion head doctor person talk to me and my mother and I came back to school with a list of accommodations for my teachers. At that point, I had stopped throwing up, but I had trouble concentrating, trouble with my speech, the ability to produce words, and still had constant headaches also my grades were lowering by a lot (A student). To this day, I'm still having those symptoms : I've had a headache since the day I had my concussion, so a year and a half just about...still have trouble with speech, ability to produce words, concentrate, it takes me 2x 3x the amount of time on homework... And my biggest problem with this is that, With a recent 4hr test with a concussion specialist, my symptoms are getting worse, and I've noticed that too. But, with a new year of school(about halfway into it), i have even a longer accommodation list from last year, but because people can't see that I have this injury, i'm so insecure about it and want almost know one to know, and I feel like my teachers don't believe me when looking at me. My symptoms come up in class a lot. But, lately some of my teacher haven't been following my accommodations given by the doctor, and my parents have been in the school several times about this. But...i just hate when the kids look at me and think..."WHATS WRONG WITH YOU?" you seem fine...it makes me feel..idk..

[katie71083]

Is there any way you could lighten your load - considerably? If classes are important, could you at least take fewer classes, online classes, homeschool, or etc? These last options would at least eliminate the social stress you've been facing.

It's been about the same amount of time for me, and I've kept working after a couple months vacation and with many, many accommodations. I'm just beginning to face the fact that this really isn't working for me, and am getting ready to take a year's leave of absence.

Sometimes we have to face the fact that our brain is demanding a rest whether or not it's what we really want.

You sound like a high achiever - I think these decisions are especially hard for high achievers. It feels like you're giving up. In reality, you're making smart decisions in spite of the fact that they're difficult to make.

I've had to come to see it as making a proactive decision so that I can continue to do well in the future.

Just throwing some thoughts out there... I feel for you... this is where I'm at right now as well.

[Greenbean9396]

Originally Posted by katie71083

Is there any way you could lighten your load - considerably? If classes are important, could you at least take fewer classes, online classes, homeschool, or etc? These last options would at least eliminate the social stress you've been facing.

It's been about the same amount of time for me, and I've kept working after a couple months vacation and with many, many accommodations. I'm just beginning to face the fact that this really isn't working for me, and am getting ready to take a year's leave of absence.

Sometimes we have to face the fact that our brain is demanding a rest whether or not it's what we really want.

You sound like a high achiever - I think these decisions are especially hard for high achievers. It feels like you're giving up. In reality, you're making smart decisions in spite of the fact that they're difficult to make.

I've had to come to see it as making a proactive decision so that I can continue to do well in the future.

Just throwing some thoughts out there... I feel for you... this is where I'm at right now as well.

Ty so much for the feedback, I'm not allowed to do gym classes this year, so to get my "P.E." credits, i'm taking a health course online for this year. Homeschool is not an option, as...my parents work everyday for several hours in the course of a day. I can't take fewer classes because then I won't receive enough credits to graduate. I just feel like so..."Oh, he's faking just for these accommodations" ...i see everyone sees that. So..not sure.

[Mark in Idaho]

Posted by greenbean9396

Hello, I'm here today to talk about my concussion, hopefully to get some comfort of some sort, as I've been really down about it, even though it happened a year and a half ago. In 2010, in i believe was October, I was in gym class and was playing some 2-hand touch football.

By accident, one of the kids knocked me over while I had the ball, I went down, and hit the back of my head, ( the ground was frozen/cold because I live in Connecticut), but i didn't black out or anything. Anyways, about a class later, I got an excruciating migraine and went home.

For about a week, i was constantly vomiting until I went to the doctors, There the doctor and my mother found out they i slammed my head (because i didn't think that was the problem) And the doctor told us to instantly go to the Hospital and get a MRI. I got the MRI, and i had no internal bleeding, so they said i had a concussion.

At that point, I was pretty dizzy, vomiting on a daily basis, still had the migraine, constantly tired, couldn't concentrate and such. Soon after, I had a concussion head doctor person talk to me and my mother and I came back to school with a list of accommodations for my teachers.

At that point, I had stopped throwing up, but I had trouble concentrating, trouble with my speech, the ability to produce words, and still had constant headaches also my grades were lowering by a lot (A student). To this day, I'm still having those symptoms : I've had a headache since the day I had my concussion, so a year and a half just about...still have trouble with speech, ability to produce words, concentrate, it takes me 2x 3x the amount of time on homework...

And my biggest problem with this is that, With a recent 4hr test with a concussion specialist, my symptoms are getting worse, and I've noticed that too. But, with a new year of school(about halfway into it), i have even a longer accommodation list from last year, but because people can't see that I have this injury, i'm so insecure about it and want almost know one to know, and I feel like my teachers don't believe me when looking at me.

My symptoms come up in class a lot. But, lately some of my teacher haven't been following my accommodations given by the doctor, and my parents have been in the school several times about this. But...i just hate when the kids look at me and think..."WHATS WRONG WITH YOU?" you seem fine...it makes me feel..idk..

greenbean9396

reposted by

[Mark in Idaho]

greenbean9396,

Welcome to NeuroTalk, Sorry to hear of your struggles. I fully understand your school problems. I went through the same problems back in 1970-1973 while in high school in Naugatuck CT. I always though CT was slow to get up to speed with new ideas. LOL

My best advice for you is to understand your brain. With good knowledge, you can explain what the dysfunctions are from a scientific/medical perspective. If you are a high achiever, this kind of explanation may be better received.

Hopefully, the 4 hour test you had was a NeuroPsychological Assessment. The NeuroPsychologist may claim to be a concussion specialist but I am careful to trust them.

I bet you struggles are:

Difficulty focusing and following the teacher's lectures and instructions.

Difficulty memorizing information. You were probably a quick study before your concussion. Not anymore.

Easily overwhelmed leading to a feeling of brain fog or loss of connection to your environment

Difficulty completing tests to the level of achievement that you expect of yourself. You study and think you understand the material but your test results do not show it.

Difficulty with social contacts. You likely tend to misunderstand others intentions.

Others complain that you are different. Your personality has changed.

I know there are others. Tell me what you worst struggles are and I will try to help you understand them so you can explain them.

I have been there, done that, lost friends due to personality changes, grades fell due to cognitive struggles, teachers refused to accommodate my needs at all.

If you are afraid to be open in a public forum, you can email or PM me. You will need to set your UserCP (upper left in the blue bar) to allow PM's and email. Left-Click on my screen name and a PM or email link should drop down.

My best to you.

[Greenbean9396]

Originally Posted by Mark in Idaho

greenbean9396,

Welcome to NeuroTalk, Sorry to hear of your struggles. I fully understand your school problems. I went through the same problems back in 1970-1973 while in high school in Naugatuck CT. I always though CT was slow to get up to speed with new ideas. LOL

My best advice for you is to understand your brain. With good knowledge, you can explain what the dysfunctions are from a scientific/medical perspective. If you are a high achiever, this kind of explanation may be better received.

Hopefully, the 4 hour test you had was a NeuroPsychological Assessment. The NeuroPsychologist may claim to be a concussion specialist but I am careful to trust them.

I bet you struggles are:

Difficulty focusing and following the teacher's lectures and instructions.

Difficulty memorizing information. You were probably a quick study before your concussion. Not anymore.

Easily overwhelmed leading to a feeling of brain fog or loss of connection to your environment

Difficulty completing tests to the level of achievement that you expect of yourself. You study and think you understand the material but your test results do not show it.

Difficulty with social contacts. You likely tend to misunderstand others intentions.

Others complain that you are different. Your personality has changed.

I know there are others. Tell me what you worst struggles are and I will try to help you understand them so you can explain them.

I have been there, done that, lost friends due to personality changes, grades fell due to cognitive struggles, teachers refused to accommodate my needs at all.

If you are afraid to be open in a public forum, you can email or PM me. You will need to set your UserCP (upper left in the blue bar) to allow PM's and email. Left-Click on my screen name and a PM or email link should drop down.

My best to you.

All of those I have, i don't get sleep at all.... if i'm lucky, i get about 2-3 hours of sleep, I've been up for 4 days without sleeping one week, and still go to school and whatnot..

I have a headache EVERY day, and sometimes it increases potentially, but it never stops, ever.

I just want freinds and teachers and people to understand what i'm going through, even though they can't see any injury/scar on my head.

School : i never used to study for tests/quizzes and achieved 95% up, now i study about 1-10 hours depending on the test and I still got above 80, which i'm fine with, but i struggle a lot.

My speech is terrible now, I constantly slur my words and blank out constantly. I have trouble reading words that were never hard for me and have trouble spelling words that are 2nd grade words, for instance, I was stuck spelling the word "That" for a solid 7 minutes before I figured it out.

[EsthersDoll]

I'm so sorry this is happening to you!!

It's happening to me too... but I'm getting better. My friends and co-workers know and trust that I'm dealing with a brain injury though. No one who knew me before the accident that gave me a brain injury thinks I'm faking it. I've had some people question me that I met after the accident, but if they knew me before they would know that I'm not. So, that sucks that you have to deal with that. I couldn't imagine going to high school with the issues you are dealing with.

Are you trying to rest a lot? Rest and sleep will most likely ease your symptoms. I'm worried that you're not getting a lot of sleep.

Mark In Idaho has pointed out in another thread that the more rest you can give yourself, then the less symptoms you will encounter and the less symptoms you deal with is time you are giving your brain to heal.

Resting means not overstimulating your brain. So, no video games, no smart phone usage, no television. Just sitting in quiet and letting your brain kick back and not do much of anything. It's very boring but trying to refrain from doing the things you might want to do will probably make you feel better.

Do you think it would help if you brought your teachers or the principal some printed forms about mild traumatic brain injury so they can understand and believe that this is going on with you?

I know it's an invisible injury. All of us here know that.

[worried_mom]

I'm sympathetic to your plight. My son has more trouble with his friends and teachers understanding. It is very difficult for him as it is for you to deal emotionally. Would be much easier if it were broken bones.

Has ANYthing worked for you with friends or teachers? My son has been out of school for 4 months now and very few friends come over.

[Mark in Idaho]

greenbean,

The first thing you need to do is resolve your sleep issues. Your brain will NEVER heal unless you can get some good sleep. Neuronal healing happens during REM sleep.

Sleep caused by a sleeping drug is not the best sleep. You need to find a way to get natural sleep. Magnesium is important to your brain's sleep mechanism. Also, tryptophan and melatonin are needed.

Can you get a referral to a sleep specialist and clinic? Honestly, your life depends on it. Sleep deprivation slowly damages the brain. Your head aches may become much less with good sleep.

The YouTube video series by John Byler called "You Look Great" will be a big help for your friends. John Byler 'looked great' despite his serious ongoing concussion symptoms. The link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9Xso...ature=youtu.be

The TBI Survival Guide has lots of good information for your teachers and friends. Find it at www.tbiguide.com It is 84 pages so have a pile of paper to print it out. Maybe your principal will print out a copy and have it on hand at school for the teachers to reference. Your principle and/or counselor should read it completely.

I understand your frustration with word finding and word spelling. Your sentence <I have a headache EVERY day, and sometimes it increases potentially, but it never stops, ever.> makes it evident. The word you were trying to find but your brain missed is exponentially.

I use spell check and spend as much time fixing the red squigglies as I do typing the original text. Spell check can be turned on in any computer program.

Difficulties with reading, writing and understanding words is due to an injury to the word processing part of the brain. I often get the wrong word to my lips that I don't realize until I hear what I have said. Tell you friends that this is part of a group of word finding disorders such as aphasia, fluent aphasia, anomic aphasia, anomia, dysnomia, and others. The brain loses the road map to the words it has stored in memory. This can happen on the speaking/writing side and on the hearing/reading/understanding side.

Early in my injury, I just had to learn to laugh. Some of the missed words made for some interesting sentences. Stress often makes this worse so the laughter can help. I find that I can sometimes unlock my brain by looking around the room and mentally naming the things I see. It is as if I am shaking the dice to try for a new number.

Your friends need to understand that you can not tolerate more than one voice at a time. Your brain used to be an 8 lane highway. Now, it is just two lanes, one each way. You may notice that sometimes, you even need to stop all movement just to think.

I know this is a tough situation. We all understand and are here for you.
btw, If you use the Post Reply button to the bottom left, it will not cause a quote of the previous post to show.
My best to you.

[paige.elizabeth]

Getting a concussion at this stage of your life is going to be the hardest. Your already dealing with the pressures of being a teenager and having this thrown into the mix doesn't help. I know this because I got 3 successive concussions in 6 months when I was 16 and 2 more in the last 6 months.

Now at 22 I am still dealing with things very similar to what you are and have been for the last 6 years. Like you I was a straight A student and never worked for it but then i fell to a 70% avg student. I ended up having to take an extra year in high school since i couldnt earn all my credits to graduate in time and it was so embarrassing. I wasn't ready to give up and jumped into a full course load my first year of university. Since i pushed myself and just wanted to be like everyone else, i ended up overloading myself and dropping out. I dont regret that decision though because even though it was not the smartest thing, at least I can say I tried and that is when i found my boundries.

Parents/teachers/peers wont ever understand what your going through. If they havent experienced it themselves and can't see the problem, they think you can just get over it and they move on while your still in the same position which is frustrating. All you can do is keep repeating yourself to them and hope one day it sinks in. If you have some really close friends that dont understand and they are important to you, take them to a doctors appointment so they can hear it from a professional. That's when it will become real for them.

Sleep issues are the worst. If you cant sleep nothing gets better and only goes downhill. Most of recovery happens when you sleep, so its really important. I use 5mg Melatonin on nights when im kind of tired but when its past mid night and im still wide awake and need to get up for work at 7 the next morning i take 10mg. I get mine from a naturopath and it has worked better than any of the prescription meds ive gotten from a doctor and ive now been using it for 4 years. If you can id strongly suggest finding a therapist who deals with natural medicines. (always consult doctors before taking something new though just in case it can interact with anything else you may be taking)
Also, for the headaches, something really important is if your taking advil/tylenol a lot you should definetly cut down. your body will get used to it and it will stop working for you and then you have to go into perscription meds from there. I know head aches are really painful, they've become apart of my daily life, but there are other ways of reducing them. Find something that relaxes you entirely, it might not make the pain go away fully but the worst of it will go. I use a hot tub or warm bath or shower and im ok for the day.

The most important piece of advice i can give you is dont be too hard on yourself and never give up, things may take longer to achieve now but the end result is well worth it. If help is offered take it, Don't let pride or embarrassement get in the way of your recovery!

Good luck with everything!