Hi,

I had a piece of scaffolding collapse on me 5 weeks ago, sending a heavy metal plank straight in between my eyes. I didn't suffer any memory loss, didn't even pass out, and my CT was negative. Still, it caused me a concussion that has dragged on since then (first 2 weeks were the worst). The symptomps are all kinds of headaches (presssure, throbbing, cutting/buzzing feeling) and they get much worse after intense physical or mental activity. I tried to do as much as I could to get better ASAP (good diet, fish oil, vitamins/minerals + gingko and lecithine since week 4), but I still feel far from normal. The headaches never stopped and only fluctuate between lighter and worse (I didn't have headaches or any health complaints before the accident).

I'm quite a nerdy guy. Brain work has sort of always been my forte, and I've sacrificed so much for learning computer science during the last couple of years and for being self-reliant. Now, pretty much any more intense work gives me headaches. Even dealing with multiple people at once. I used to be a full time professional freelance translator for English and Czech with lots of clients--a job I was unhappy in because I found it unchallenging. Yesterday, I had a couple of friends visit here (CR) from Australia. They do every year. I always interpret for them so they can have a conversation with their Czech family. Yesterday, it was too much for me. My brain was killing me for trying to decipher the thick accent one of them had (never had problems with it before) and for trying to hold the sentences in my head before I could translate them.

I felt totally ruined afterwards. Spent the whole night thinking about suicide.

I just want to be happy and active like I was 1.5 months ago--ride my bicycle 15km to the gym, spend 3 hours busting my *** in there and go back and spend 2 days nonstop working on tough coding challenges, but I can't. Even a bit of either makes my headache much worse. I've spent most of the last month in bed, doing nothing and having a headache. I've tried and tried again. It feels like it's never ending

What's worse, I've spent the last couple of years living with my parents so I could save some money (my parent's rent is better than that of a landlord in a big city). I hate it here and my dad hates me (he usually stays away now that I'm grown up, but a couple of days after the accident (which was pretty much his fault BTW), he couldn't help but come shouting at me about how incapable I am for lying in bed and not doing his work for him and how i should get the **** outta the house). Being in this middle of nowhere where I'm at made me lose or at least distance myself from most of my friends. Two people who mattered a great deal died in July. I feel very alone in this. I could stand being alone while I was working hard on my skills, knowing that August was the month I was gonna go for a programming job offer I'd got and leave. Now I feel week, unproductive, useless and very much afraid if I'll ever be myself again, and I don't think I'll be able to live like this for much longer.

Does this ever get better? Does it really go away within a couple of months like the neurologist whom my doctor friend got me says, or do people just get used to living with it? Do people ever come back to normal (i.e., do they get healed) or is it just that the rest of the brain learns to compensate for damage that's irreversible?

Is there anything more I can do to help this get better? I resent this "rest and wait approach". I think I'll try and order these meds *edited*get back to eating more them highly brain healthy foods (slipped in that area in the last couple of days) and try and get back to exercising (some web articles suggest that it promotes neurogenesis),and I think I've already had enough of rest).

What do you think? Especially if you have a story with a positive outcome, please do share.
You're awesome if you've made it this far in this brain dump of mine.

Have a nice day,
Petr (25 years old)