Hi,

Please avoid alcohol for now. I wouldn't even be thinking about when alcohol will be okay at this point; I'm sorry if that's not what you want to hear, but recovery from a head injury takes a long time, and alcohol just slows down that process. Even thinking in terms of when one is symptom free, many of us have good days and bad days. Having a good day, or even a string of good days, doesn't mean we are healed, so using symptoms as an indicator of when we can drink again can be detremental to the progress we have made, not to mention that drinking tends to increase the odds of further head injury (my initial injury happened because I was drunk).

I have heard varying estimates on how long we need to be symptom free before we can drink again safely, but I probably won't feel comfortable with it until I'm symptom free for six months or more... and even then, given that the alcohol played a major role in my injury, I may not ever look at drinking the same way again to be honest.

Best wishes.

Hey Mark, I got into worrying about if I have CTE or not again.

What makes you think I don't have CTE?

If I have CTE, then it means that my head will get start getting progressively worse immediately or after 12 to 16 years even without taking any more hits? I think that's the part that is confusing me.

Is that what it means? So if I'm getting better I don't have CTE/punch drunk? Or does it improve and then suddenly in 12 to 16 years I will start having problems?


Thanks Mark

bro, I have one concussion and two brutal acquired brain injuries. my head hurts all the time. my symptoms are too numerous to list. I am 46. I may get dementia from this or i may not. I cannot do anything about it and neither can you. but you didn't have cumulative injuries over years. CTE, from my understanding, comes from chronic blows to the head over time. stop worrying so much, get as well as you can and enjoy life.

PorscheTarbo,

You are mixing up terms. Punch drunk and CTE are not the same. Punch drunk is an obsolete term because it was overly broad and undefined.

As I said, it sounds like you are having the same struggles common to someone who has suffered a serious concussion. You are having a prolonged recovery. This is common in 15% of moderate or worse concussions. Doctors do not understand why some will recover quickly and other will take much longer.

Either way, there is nothing you can do to change the facts of your assault or how your brain is recovering except to live a low risk lifestyle and pursue a brain healthy nutrition.

CTE stands for Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. That means the brain has been subjected to chronic (repeated) trauma and is slowly atrophying. The key part about CTE is the repeated trauma. It can be many concussions over a period of years or it can be hundreds of sub-concussive impacts over a period of years.

The issue is often that the brain is not given adequate time to recover before the next trauma. Subconcussive impacts are often 10 or more in the space of a few hours or less. So, whether it is multiple concussions in a few month long season or 800-1000 subconcussive impacts in the same season, the brain has taken a beating.

I don't think you qualify for either scenarios.

So, get the anxiety in check.

My best to you.