I was talking to a doctor yesterday at my neurophych she said that in the first year you have the greatest chance of recovery.. normally what is left after the first year you are stuck with ALTHOUGH there are studies that will show some very slow progress up until the 2nd year..

A quote from something I read at BrainFacts.org.

Myth- Brain Damage is always permanent.

After more serious brain injury, such as stroke, research indicates that — especially with the help of therapy — the brain may be capable of developing new connections and “reroute” function through healthy areas.
BrainFacts.org

Yes, I agree, but doesn't this imply that the damaged neurons are lost already, and the brain is just attempting to compensate by using the remaining healthy areas?

This is my biggest fear, and I hope someone can show evidence to the contrary. I am hoping for evidence of neurogenesis after MTBI, not neuroplasticity.

The brain never recovers to 100%. It may recovered to an appearance of 100% but it will be less tolerant to stress. When under stress, the less than 100% recovery may be evident.

You are far too early in your recovery to be worried about how much you will recover. You may recover to 99%. Nobody can predict how much you will recover.

What specifically are you afraid of ? Plenty of people live full lives with residual symptoms from a brain injury.

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.. 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.

Yes, what is lost does not heal. Science refers to the process as Neuroplasticity (or brain plasticity).

My brain scan shows evidence of a prior injury to the brain. I interpret that to mean brain damage. However, the good news is that when you excercise your brain it responds by adapting. At least, that is how I understand it.

Another quote:
Brain plasticity is a common term used by neuroscientists, referring to the brain's ability to change at any age – for better or worse.

brainHQ from Posit Science
http://www.brainhq.com/brain-resourc...ain-plasticity

I interpret the words 'better or worse' to mean, 'use it or lose it'. Your brain can and will adapt if you give it the chance.
Jamie