most people are afraid of having remnants of pcs/tbi for good because the remnants stink!! that being said, you guys with fresh concussions are very likely to get so much better that this will seem like a bad dream.

I had concussion at 15 from football. landed on a rock. Blacked out. In a few months the symptoms were gone and i sure as heck FELT 100 percent better for the next 25 years until an ABI affected me badly...just be a little extra careful in the future once you're better

I agree with many here that the idea of the brain not being able to fully recover is upsetting, and seeing posts on this board, many from you Mark, about how once concussed, always concussed, and that stress will likely bring out symptoms even if they go away, has caused a lot of distress for me. I loved who I was before the injury, as I'm sure everyone here also did, and the thought that that person is gone forever is profoundly upsetting.

So, I'm wondering (and I don't mean to sound accusatory here, I'm not trying to be!) how you (or the field in general) know this? That is, what is the evidence that a single, mild concussion leaves permanent damage that can always rear it's ugly head if we stress our brains? I understand that if there is structural damage, this likely will always be there, but whether or not that damage results in a permanent functional deficit (or propensity for such a deficit with stress) seems harder to demonstrate definitively.

Are there studies that have demonstrated this? Or is this just the consensus of the field, or your personal experience having been an elder on the board for a while and being very knowledgable about TBI in general?

hey...you didn't read my personal study about being completely fine after brutal head on rock concussion during football :) It happened at 15 and after a while..some months or a little longer, the symptoms were gone and didn't affect me at all like i said. brutal acquired injury 25 years later had nothing to do with this concussion. hang in there kid.

There was a study done back in the 1970's that compared college students who had never had a concussion to those who had a history of concussion. When in normal, non-stressed situations, they performed the same. When put under physiological stress, those with a history of concussion had a noticeable decline in performance. Those without a concussion history performed the same.

When I read this, it put my life into perspective. I have had many times when I struggled during stress situations. I would freeze up during the stress of a test but once the pressure was gone, I could recite the test and the correct answers.

When I live a stressful life with work and such, I struggled more. When I made changes to reduce the complexity of my life, I struggled much less.

Studies have shown that the stress of multi-tasking is damaging to the healthy brain. Those of us with a concussion history need to be even more focused at reducing the stress of multi-tasking and such.

This does not mean our lives are over. Stress is a killer for even healthy people. High blood pressure, anxiety issues, depression, and the related diseases are all related to stress.

For some of us, we need to change behaviors to avoid situations where we may have an unexpected outburst.

I have a question for you guys. What behaviors and activities do you think you will lose out on due to your concussion ?

If you tore up a knee, you would likely have lifelong limitations. Many do and get on with their lives without a problem.

My main fear with this whole concussion is that I've lost who I once was. I used to be extremely physically active as a distance runner, and mentally active as a grad student, and was pretty much always happy or content, and rarely anxious. Now, I can't exercise like I used to, and am afraid that I'll never be able to return to my active lifestyle, which was a large part of how I defined myself. I'm also afraid that I won't be able to return to my PhD program, as I can't read for long periods of time (currently 10 minutes) without exacerbating symptoms.

Most of all, I'm afraid that I won't return to my normal, happy-go-lucky self. If I blew out a knee and couldn't run anymore, I'd at least feel like it was me who would have to deal with the consequences of that. But I haven't felt like me in 6 months, and the prospect of never feeling like me again is scary and sad. It's hard to explain exactly why I don't feel like myself. I'm sure much of it is simply that I'm not doing what I used to be doing all the time, and so I'm anxious and depressed and just don't feel right. But it seems deeper than that, like something about me has fundamentally changed.

All the specialists I've seen assure me that I have a high chance for full recovery, but when I hear you say that stress may always hold me back, I'm afraid that for the rest of my life I'll have to avoid the stress of running 100 miles a week, or reading intensely to study, or staying up late to write up a paper, or spending a month in Hawaiian forests collecting crickets (my current work, haha), or simply think deeply and clearly about an experiment or something like that. I'm afraid I'll have to live my life without this cloud hanging over me all the time, I don't want to always have to think about how every little thing I'm doing might affect the long-term health of my brain.

I also realize that I'm incredibly lucky that things aren't worse, and I don't have to deal with the hardship that many on this board deal with every day (short-term memory issues for instance), but those are the fears I'm dealing with right now.

I had a concussion at age 15 , horse bolted and ran through a fence then bucked me off and I landed on my head, blacked out for awhile but made it back home.
Partially blacking out while horse was jogging and bouncing all the way home..:rolleyes: I had no cognitive or physical limitations after recovery from the fall.

Perhaps age at injury, or time frame of injuries, has something to do with it?
After reading all of the forums here it seems that everyone has such varying levels of symptoms in nearly every condition, it is hard to lock anything to 100% or not.


Now that I know about upper cervical misalignment, this did happen in my case and probably played a part in my acquiring RSI /TOS 20+ years later along with the repetitive work I was doing at the time.

I am most concerned about the brain fog. Does it every completely recover?

My boss has commented that I seem "out of it" for the past week. My job requires me to synthesize different types of information to come up with predictions on the future. This job is extremely cognitively taxing (or stressful).

For my whole life I have been depending on my ability to think well. Having permanent damage is extremely disturbing I completely empathize with Laupala.

Most importantly, if it is true that the brain does not structurally heal, I want to know the environmental factors that prevent things from getting worse (e.g. lifestyle, nutrition, supplementation, etc.). A lot of the brain damage is not immediate, but occurs throughout the days after the TBI. Research has not gotten to this level of detail yet.

Does anyone here have reliable information (from a credible source) on what can be done to reduce brain damage? (e.g. lifestyle, nutrition, supplementation, dosages, etc.)

Even if they discover that supplement X reduces brain volume loss by 10% after concussion if immediately taken at daily doses of Y, it would be very helpful for future sufferers of concussion.

Whatever science or statistics say, I am determined to keep dreaming and fighting. Let us be the exception that proves wrong the established theories or popular beliefs. Let us erase the boundaries of human capacity. Let us show that there are no limits, but only plateaus.

agreed! experts agree the vast, vast majority fully recover. there might be some scars in my brain but the rest of it recovers & rewires to the point where i don't notice the difference. i believe.

Where did you read that "experts agree, the vast, vast majority fully recover" ? There is a big difference between becoming symptom free and fully recovered. One of the standards often used for recovery is simple. Does the patient stop complaining and asking for care or treatment ?

Studies also show that those athletes who recover to their baseline in Computerized Neurocognitive Testing (ImPACT or CNS Vital Signs) still show signs of brain injury weeks later with other testing systems.

It does not mean we should lose hope. Just that our hope should be realistic and we should be careful about the risks and stresses we take on in our future.

85% recover from all symptoms within 6 weeks or so. But, this does not mean they can tolerate stressors without a return of symptoms.