Hi all! I hit my head in April, it was a mild concussion. I felt better after about 10 days and drank very heavily. I was living in a new city by myself so it was the only social activity I thought I could seek out. I then felt very lost, foggy, and like my brain was torn apart for maybe 3 weeks while slowly recovering. After that I thought I had almost fully recovered and I drank another beer and felt miserable again. I repeated this cycle twice more. Each time after consuming alcohol (not bingeing, I drank maybe 1-2 beers) I felt like a 1000 times worse than I did when I initially hit my head. I felt better again after about 4 weeks after this last drink of booze, and again drank maybe half a corona in mid July 2015. That was the biggest mistake of my young life.

I constantly feel like I can't construct a single thought. It feels impossible to connect with anyone. I can't look anyone in the eye, not even close friends and family because I can't mentally picture my own mind. It's absolute hell. Its been about 6 months now since the initial hit, and almost two months since the last time I drank. My symptoms haven't gotten better. I know to a large extent I brought this upon myself, but really need some hope. It's so overwhelming everyday to just think about the recovery process, and how far away I feel from the person I used to be.

I've been to two neurologists. My MRI and EKG are all normal. Both think I am fine or will be fine with time. But, this just doesn't seem to get better. I am taking unpaid leave from work and staying at my mom's house. I thought I would stay here till I felt clearer, but its been a whole month with no improvement. To be more clear, the only big problem is that the moment I try to structure a thought or think to myself I begin feeling an impossible pressure in my head that doesn't allow me to access my thinking. Maybe this is depersonalization, I'm not sure.

hermanator90,

Welcome to NeuroTalk. Many with PCS develop a severe sensitivity to alcohol. Maybe your brain needs some help detoxifying. I suggest you read the vitamins sticky at the top and get started on a brain focused vitamin regimen.

If you live near a Rehabilitation Clinic or Hospital, getting assessed there may be helpful. They could direct you to a therapist to help you with thinking struggles.

Hermanator,

I am somewhat in the same boat as you. I got a concussion in March, it was my senior year of college and struggled not being able to be social or drink until graduation. It took me about 3 months to start feeling better and that was when I had removed myself from a stressful and worrisome environment (college). I began to drink again and go full speed 100% back into my old activities and my symptoms returned. The best advice I can give is to accept that this can take a long time to recover and that stressing or worrying about it just makes it much worse. Take care of yourself and let your body heal

Nick,

Thanks for the note! Hope you are doing better now. I have a couple questions for you -

1. Did you experience day to day recovery after your symptoms returned? Because I used to experience day to day improvement before that last drink in July. Now things just seem stagnant, and that is what is really scary. They've been stagnant for the last two weeks.

2. When you were recovering from symptoms did you have a lot of setbacks? When I was initially getting better I would slowly get better but not slip back from a recovery standpoint barring additional stimulus (usually a long day of work or alcohol). About two weeks ago I felt clearer than I had felt in a long time but the moment I had a conversation with someone I felt myself slip out and exhaust into chaos again.

hermanator90,

It is problematic to try to compare recovery processes and outcomes. There is a saying. If you have seen one brain injury, you have seen ONE brain injury.

It helps to try what others have tried but try without expecting the same result. It is more important to figure out how your brain is responding to various activities. If face to face talk is a struggle, email can be helpful at maintaining those connections.

It will help to find an activity you brain will tolerate. You need to stimulate good brain blood flow with causing brain chaos. Manual activities are often good. The struggling brain can usually handle manual activities because the hands can not work faster than the struggling brain can process. Craft projects, learning to do card tricks, playing solitaire with a real deck of cards, working in the yard/garden, etc. can give you a sense of moving forward and keep you from going boredom crazy.

Recovery is almost always a roller coaster ride. Some times, one can identify the triggers of the down cycles. Sometimes, they just happen. Sleep can make a big difference. Keeping good sleep hygiene with no excessive napping during the day that interrupts proper long sleep at night is good.

But, if an activity causes you to feel sleepy, a short nap can be helpful. I spent a lot of time in a recliner where I could nod off if I felt sleepy. I use a laptop and do online jigsaw puzzles and things like that. If my eyes feel tired, I just put my head back and doze off. My wife says she can tell when i am getting a good nap. After 20 minutes, I spontaneously wake and am back at it. I get some of my best sleep in my recliner because the sleep is demand oriented. By that I mean, I sleep when my brain says to sleep.

Early in my recovery, I would be able to do 10 to 20 minute activities. I had a rotation of things to do. If I was at my desk and started to struggle to read a line of text on the computer screen, I would stop and go downstairs to my recliner and watch some Discovery Channel. I'd might take the dogs for a walk and start the rotation over again.

So, try to find small tasks and activities to occupy your time with. The mild stimulation is good.

Mark,

All of that makes sense. I just want to thank you for being so proactive and thorough in responding. For someone like myself who has spent the last few months just looking for someone to speak to who would understand what I'm going through, this forum is very very helpful.

Thanks!

Hey,

I agree with Mark its tough to compare other people's recoveries to your own considering all of my friends and teammates (I played college soccer) would get concussions and then feel fine a few weeks later. Nothing about my recovery has ever been day to day. I find it useless to stress over why I am feeling good one day and why I am not feeling good another day. I have had good days where I had a stressful day at work and I got through it just fine and came home from work with plenty of energy and in a good mood. I have had other days where I got a lot of sleep didn't do anything stressful all day and felt pretty bad. So I have given up trying to fuss and analyze every last symptom or feeling that i have and figuring out where it came from or why its not going away. The key for me is just acceptance, keeping stress to a minimum, patience, and knowing that things will eventually get better!

Things have been stagnant for a while now since my setback and I am trying to be patient and take care of myself as best I can because thats all that is really in my control.

Hope that helps somehow.

I am sorry to keep belaboring about myself, but been resting for about 40 days now without any improvement at all. It's very difficult because I am completely unable to connect with people. Not just strangers, even friends and family.

Just to quell my anxiety, I am wondering if anyone in the past couple weeks has come across anything that might explain why I have been feeling this way. To reiterate, my concussion was made much much worse by repeated alcohol use. I literally felt all the clarity and improvement disappear the moment I completed my last alcoholic drink back in July now. And things just have not gotten better.

I began a vitamin regimen in early October, but other than that just taking a lot of rest. Would love to know any additional information on effect of alcohol on a brain recovering from concussion that might explain why the last few months have been so stagnant.

Thanks a lot!

It is a losing game to try to point to a reason for prolonged concussion symptoms. Every concussion is different. Every response to alcohol is different. Prior alcohol binges can create a brain that is very sensitive to alcohol.

It might help to engage in some low stress activities that encourage good brain blood flow. Light exercise that does not cause symptoms may help.

I don't drink, but have the exact same experience with caffeine. A literal teaspoon drop of coffee makes me completely nuts, and it usually takes a day or two to recover. I guess our brains are just so sensitive to toxins or stimulants of any sort that even small amounts of this stuff can turn life upside down for awhile. Oddly enough, there are actually a couple of supplements that I've tried that have done the exact same thing to me, including 5 HTP and St. John's Wort. Both make me feel like it's about time to check into the psycho ward. And like most people on here, before my accident I could drink up to 4 cups of coffee in the morning and more caffeine at night and feel totally fine.

Hang in there man. I'm in about the same boat as you are and was a Spring of 2015 injury. I find that actually getting out there and doing stuff in moderation is way better than being at home worrying about the symptoms and the injury. Unless I'm talking to my immediate family, most people's faces have an unreal almost one-dimensional Gustav Klimpt quality to them that is alternately terrifying, and if you let it be, rather funny.