Hi folks. My name is same and i was just hoping you guys could give me some perspective or potentially advice on what to expect, what to avoid and what to do in order to facilitate my recovery. I suffered a concussion in january 2012 when drinking with some friends and was roughhousing when i hit my head on some carpeted concrete. Its hard to tell if i had nausea or most of the symptoms of a concussion after the blow because any of those symptoms can be contributed to drinking too much-- which i was.
anyway, after 2 or 3 days i noticed my "hangover" wasn't going away. i found it difficult to read or understand complex arguments or memorize information and such. i went to the doctor and was diagnosed with a concussion, but the cat scan came back ok and i was released with a diagnosis of rest. i recovered, but throughout the school year, i would come in and out of symptoms. sometimes i would be my usual self, while others i would be confused and have difficulty doing all my schoolwork which involves a lot of complex critical thinking and ideological analysis... which you can imagine is hard with a concussion.
fast forward to 6 months later, i have been home for the summer for a month and i feel like i am doing slightly better... i have been taking fish oil and magnesium supplements. i have episodes where my symptoms come back, but when i do i feel like i can usually isolate why (i was drinking, i didn't sleep enough the night before, exc) and they seem to be less severe than they were before. i can still read and understand complex arguments with enough effort.(where before the concussion i could understand something at first reading, sometimes i need to read something 2-3 times to understand it.) i was just wondering if anyone had some advice or information for me as to how much longer i might be dealing with this, and what i can do to ensure i am doing my best to facilitate recovery. thank you.

Sammyboi,

Welcome to NeuroTalk.

I hope you know the first thing you need to do to facilitate further recovery and prevention of any relapses. STOP DRINKING. The research suggests the limit should be a single serving per day with no alcohol the best. Good sleep is important. A lower stress lifestyle is also important.

There is absolutely no way anybody can prognose how long it will take for further recovery if further recovery is even possible.

If you have times when you feel fully recovered but then times when you regress, it sounds like your recovery may be as complete as it is going to get.

The concussed brain never heals completely. You may be able to maintain it so that you are at high levels of function but you will need to make lifestyle changes to maintain such levels.

So, use you experience to determine what behaviors or activities cause a return of symptoms. Just know that alcohol will leave you feeling hung over.

You need to understand that symptoms often will have a short delay after the triggering activity. A triggering activity on Monday may not cause a return of symptoms until Tuesday.

Live and learn from your own experience or ask people here and you can learn from their experience.

My best to you.

okay, a few clarifications and a few questions. pretty much since the beginning i have been able to recover to what to me feels like fully functioning levels after taking it easy for a couple weeks. that is largely what i am dealing with now. Is what you are saying that i will never be able to avoid returning lapses of symptoms happening from things as simple as stressing out about school work? Is the level I'm at the goal of recovery, or do some people return to a level where they mostly don't have symptom relapse? I'm just really stressed seeing as how I'm doing online courses now and have my final semester in the fall.

Also, are you saying its possible to maintain high functionality as long as i watch my lifestyle, without having relapses?

Yes to your last question.

The longer you can make a symptoms free episode last, the greater chance you have at further recovery. Recovery only happens when you are symptoms free. You can reverse a level of improvement by triggering a return of symptoms.

Learning a calmer, more stress free life will greatly enhance further recovery. It will also greatly enhance your life. High energy living is counter to good health, especially brain health.

From what you've said here, it sounds like you've been trying to rush back into your normal lifestyle, and that this has been slowing your progress. The urge to get back to "normal" life as quickly as possible is quite understandable, but it needs to be resisted if you are to to recover close to your pre-injury level. The more you try to rush back into schoolwork, being busy, etc., the more likely it is that you will have some permanent residual effects, or even have a bad relapse (read my signature at the bottom).

It's hard, but you need to be patient with yourself and give yourself lots of time to rest and take it easy. That might mean cutting back on schoolwork or taking a semester or two off. Your long-term health is far more important, and if you try to rush too quickly back into your previous lifestyle, you WILL have setbacks, you might have a SERIOUS relapse, and you will be at much greater risk of having long-term problems.

You can feel better for long periods of time--days and even weeks--and still be nowhere near full recovery. What you find is that your activity tolerance levels are lower; it takes much less exertion (physical or mental) to get symptoms popping up, and as Mark said, you often don't know you've overdone it until a day later. The more you can learn to recognize early warning signs of stressing out your injury, and the more you can take breaks as soon as those signs begin to appear, the better chance you will have of a strong recovery.

So again, please be PATIENT and do not rush your recovery. Avoid overstimulating environments (i.e. light and noise), avoid physical overexertion, try to get on a regular sleep schedule, avoid alcohol, eat well, take frequent breaks for meditation or lying down, and avoid trying to multitask. Hang in there. There's a difficult way through this and a REALLY difficult way...there is no easy way. The REALLY difficult way is trying to rush back into a normal lifestyle; the difficult way is taking it easy and taking very good care of yourself. There is no other way.

Thank you both so much for your comments. it really give me a new outlook and a new focus for what i have to do in order to get better.