Hello guys - I've been a NT lurker for some time, and have learned a lot from this forum. This will be a relatively long post, but I hope that posting about my symptoms might help others.

I hit my head on a tree as I was standing up in my front yard approximately 1.5 months ago, didn't lose consciousness, but felt a bit dizzy at first and had a headache for an hour or so. I didn't think it was a concussion, since it was such a minor impact, so I went for a 5K run a few days later and felt absolutely awful afterwards (pressure headache, irritable, dizzy).

Obviously I haven't run since then, and I took a couple of weeks off from work, the gym, basically everything. My outstanding symptoms are unilateral headaches on the left side of my head (where it was hit), and intolerance to exercise. At first, raising my heart rate at all would exacerbate my symptoms. I have followed the University of Buffalo regime for treating exercise intolerance, and have made some slow, steady progress. I couldn't raise my heart rate above 100 BPM at first, and I'm now able to hold 130 with almost no exacerbation in symptoms. This is, by far, the most difficult symptom of the injury. I was a competitive 5K runner before my concussion, and being able to run again is a high priority for me.

I haven't had any cognitive difficulty since the concussion (which I'm very thankful for), but my unilateral headache will pop up any time I drive to work (unfortunately my commute is about 45 minutes and it's a fairly rough road). The headache feels like tension, tingling and a slight burning on the injured side of my head. My left ear also starts feeling blocked when this headache comes on. Taking an ibuprofen or aleve before I drive helps quite a bit, but the overall symptom hasn't really gotten better or worse (I have good days and bad days, but overall no real change).

My questions are: when people talk about brain sensitivity on this forum, are you all talking about bilateral headaches, or just one side of your head being affected? My headaches are not severe, just a bit distracting. Is it safe to keep going to work and taking ibuprofen when I need it if I'm having no other symptoms? At this point, would taking medical leave and resting even help?

Without going into details, I'm a flight instructor, and it would be very detrimental for me to take time off of work. If I thought I was having cognitive problems in the plane, I would take a break for sure, but my headaches haven't seemed to worsen my flying ability. I just worry that I'm impeding my recovery by having to commute on a rough road and having my symptoms flare up.

Thanks for reading. Hopefully this finds you all during a "good brain day."