I bet the day after subjecting yourself to lighting and other stimulations, you have a bad day. Often, we can get our brain to meet the task at hand but the fatigue manifests at a later time, usually the next day or that evening.

I disagree with the challenge your brain protocol. Minimal levels of stimulation are good but pushing is counter-productive in my opinion and the opinion of many experts.

You want to find the correct kind and level of stimulation to keep the brain engaged but not over-taxed.

My best to you.

Right on, Mark. People who push us to do things, aren't around to see the fallout.

Totally agree in that it's not about overdoing it, but stimulating lightly. If I do too much, I absolutely feel it for 1-2 days afterwards. My doc also seems to believe that coffee does PCS patients well, due to increased mental focus and also the research around brain protective properties. He certainly doesn't recommend drinking a pot of coffee every day, but condones one cup per day.

Should mention that my new doc is the head doc for our cities NHL team and well known in the sports/concussion community. I always take what docs say with a grain of salt and listen to my body, but some of what he has to say makes sense to me.

At this stage I'm just wondering if I'll ever return to a somewhat normal life. Neck trigger point injections start tomorrow for my whiplash. I will post results.

Interesting... my neuro says that I am ok at 1-8 oz cup of coffee...

What are the trigger point injections?

I have pretty severe whiplash from a motorcycle accident (came down on my head/neck in excess of 80 km/h).

As my neck isn't resolving, my doc has ordered therapy in which a freezing agent is injected in to what the believe to be areas of triggering symptoms.

Will post results.

Wanted to post an update. I have been taking Betahistine (SERC) when the dizziness gets bad and has been working quite effectively. That in conjunction with IMT (Intramuscular Therapy - trigger point injections) has helped immensely. My neck is about 60% better and dizziness is less of an issue. I am now able to go to the grocery store, malls, etc. I do still have symptoms come on, but about 20% of what they were previously and I haven't had to take a nausea/anti vertigo med in over 3 weeks now. I went to Walmart last night, which is a big accomplishment for me, as Walmaert would always make me sick...I was walking around, shopping and honestly hardly even noticed any symptoms for the first time in a year! Considering symptoms were still moderate to severe 3-4 weeks ago, I'd say that this therapy has really helped me. I had previously been doing physio 2 times per week for 9 months, with little result. My neck would always seize up again a day later and symptoms of dizziness/nausea would come on strong. From what I've researched I knew that getting the neck under control could only help the post concussion dizziness that I've had for almost a year now.

I'd encourage anyone with concussion + moderate to severe whiplash to consider IMT. There's a clinic in my city that does this technique, however don't see as much online regarding it. They inject what's similar to a dental freezing agent (lidocaine) deep in to my muscle tissue, at points that they define as triggers. This immediately released tense muscles at about 10 trigger points in my neck. The doc says like night and day when examining my muscle stiffness afterwards. As soon as they inject, my muscles completely relax. This allows my body a more long term solution of muscle relaxation and time for more oxygen to be delivered to the muscle tissue for healing. It hurts at first, but has helped big time with stiffness, soreness and the rest of the whiplash symptoms that I've had since Aug/13.

Now all that I need is more time for my brain to heal more. I know that I'm not out of the woods, but this therapy really has helped me out of the several treatments/therapies/tests I've done over the last year. PCS symptoms have been reduced in half (if not more). I would be interested to see if the treatment could help someone else as much as it has me.

I wonder if it would have the same effect as botox...

Hi - I'm only young and I got whiplash in November at a theme park at my brothers birthday celebration. After a got off this ride I had a headache so I had some Neurofen and kept going. For the next couple of days, as I was going back to school after the holidays, I had a mild headache so we saw a doctor and he referred me to a doctor at this hospital. He saw me and then referred me to a Neurologist. By this time I had severe neck and headache. Since then I've had two MRI scans and two blood tests and I know this is nothing compared to the trauma other people are going through but it was bad for me. So by now I had missed 4 weeks of school and the MRI scans and blood tests were completely normal, so what was wrong with me? My mum was great, she looked after me for the whole time I was ill and never complained or said I was faking. The Neurologist then said she was pretty sure I had whiplash. My mums friend told us about this great cranial osteopath and I saw him every day for three weeks, and then every other day and so on. By now I still had a headache and necklace both a score of 6 on a scale when 10 is painful. So then we were thinking of getting this injection that numbs your nerve or something like that (I can't quite remember) but we wanted that as a last option. I had now missed a whole term of school (8 weeks) and it was the Christmas holidays. I remember my mum asking for me to say my headache was a 3, but it wasn't. We continued with the osteopath during the holidays and by the end my pain level was a 3-4. So when school started again I went back and my headache just went up as soon as I had to concentrate. I missed LOTS f school!! The times I went home and my mum was always there - she was so understanding. So that was then and this is now: I am lying in bed off school today because I'm not sleeping at the minute - this is the second day of this week. It is 8 months since the theme park and I still have a headache and neck ache. My and my mum are kinda losing hope so we are thinking I might have to have that injection after all. Any tips? We are going back to my osteopath tomorrow and I might be having acupuncture! I always feel tired because I have to be like normal and fight this horrible headache all the time and I can't do anything about it. My school report last term said I had missed 84 says of school!
I'm not trying to make anyone feel sorry for me but I feel better already that I've shared my story.