I have been getting a ride to my upper cervical chiropractor who is about 1 hour away until last week I drove myself on 2 different days. By Friday I had a raging headache, my eyes were fatigued, and brain fog was back. Had to take it easy all weekend. Slowly feeling better. Was this from the driving?

How often, and how far, do you normally drive? I would venture to say that an hour drive each way is probably a bit much for now if you're not used to driving that far. Lots of quick thinking involved in driving, and that may be amounting to a lengthy amount of overstimulation.

Was anything else different last week? Any other possible trigger?

I have started driving in the last couple of months. I only drive when there is no traffic and I am feeling o.k.

One issue I have is the ability to multi task, when driving you have to be looking at 3 different mirrors, the road ahead, the speedometer and god help me if I need to turn up the heat or put on the defroster.

I also have post traumatic vision syndrome and the movement on my eyes while driving give me sore and burning eyes after about 1/2 hour.

I am going to take some driving lessons to see if I can develop some strategies to lesson my symptoms while driving. A talking car would be nice. In the interim I have my children giving instructions.

Good luck, it is really inconvient not to drive.

Hi Vanilla Bean,

In most of 2010, I couldn't drive on freeways due to my concussion, post concussive headache, etc. My brain was being overloaded with ALL visual information which in past (pre-injury) my brain simply processed as non-essential and disregarded. It's similar to noisy over stimulation, or trying to multi-task, our brains are relearning how to do those things.

I can drive now in almost 100% traffic, but only after taking baby steps to ramp back up to full on rush hour traffic.

Yes, depending on the injuries, this is unfortunately part of the effects of mTbi. Don't try to push beyond what your brain is comfortable with at the present moment.

Mike

I definitely find driving triggers symptoms, but this is getting better for me . I find it helpful when I drive to wear sun glasses and headphones. We also upgraded our car so that road noise was decreased. I do relaxation exercises before I drive. I never listen to the radio or talk on my phone while I drive, I find doing two things at once really triggers my symptoms. Good luck.

Do you wear prisms? I found they helped a lot. Not perfect, but better!
Good luck