This guy had the right idea on how to heal. Good recovery blog.

http://postconcussionsyndromerecover...ome-story.html

This blog is a long read. Likely too much for many trying to recover.

It is actually written by a man. I bet he and his insurance company likely spent close to $100,000 for all of his treatments and travel. Everything he tried, whether it worked or not has been suggested and used both successfully and unsuccessfully by people on NT. UPMC, Buffalo, neurofeedback, neuro-ophthalmology, PT, vestibular, etc. One needs to find the right mix of these diagnostics and therapies. Remember, every brain injury is different and will respond differently.

An important part in his blog was the advice to stop tracking and grading symptoms. A more general approach to dealing with the pattern of symptoms and improvements reduces anxiety.

I'm surprised there was no mention of B-12, folate and D-3 to help nerve fibers heal.

Isn't the part about expose and recovery contrary to what is preached here a lot?

I also received similar advice from the head of the concussion clinic at Dartmouth. It seems the brain needs some stimulation and exposure to uncomfortable settings or it will readapt to its new way of life.

Seems like everybody and anybody who has recovered has had to expose and recover. Rest is best at the start but, not sure how it's going to fix anything if you get stuck like this, vestibular therapy, vision therapy, graded excercises, and slow exposure to your triggers plus staying positive seems like the key to healing.

As much as I love the vitamin regimens, they haven't really done anything for me other than change the color of my pee. For me, personally the depression has hurt, screen time is my other big problem, I need to start going out of the house. Start on the buffalo protocol and stop searching for answers on the internets.

Mark his dedication is what sets this guy apart, he follows all of his doctors advice religiously and it seems like it paid of. Doing therapy all day everyday for 13 months in a row, while staying optimistic. I have a feeling that most people on NT have not done that. I know I haven't.

Qtip, how and which part of your brain did you injure? My main trigger is screen time and it's really frustrating and depressing. Especially in winter, when there is literally nothing to do. Concentration is a problem also, so that pretty much rules out any other activities. It's the nightmare that won't end, but I've kind of got used to living in it. Weird as that sounds.

Expose and recover is controversial for PCS. I think it's value is mostly psychological, not physiological. Realizing that we can be exposed to a trigger and recover and survive is empowering.

To me, the valuable part of expose and recover is short exposures. I know my limits. I don't have to avoid the exposure. I just need to know I am approaching my limit of the exposure. It is not a formulaic time. It is understanding when my brain is starting to be negatively impacted. And, I don't look for that negative impact. I am just able to notice it when it happens. My wife can recognize it in me, too.

My sound sensitivities are as bad as they have always been. I am just better at tolerating them by not adding to them with an anxiety response. Our psychological response can feed a physiological response. What might have been an annoyance becomes a crisis if we let our mind get away.

Dr Norman Droige's book is full of these 'recoveries' that take hundreds of hours of disciplined therapy. Most do not have the time, resources, or concentration to maintain these levels. The intellectual OCD it takes to keep up with these is exhausting in itself.

Doozer,

Screen time was just the worst for me originally. For about 6 weeks or so, I had to rest my eyes every other hour for a full hour. It's depressing and just really hard to deal with.

My opthalmologist (Dr. Lowell Singman) said my nerves were yanked bank and forth and stretched during my roll over car accident because our brains are sort of floating but they are wired to our eyeballs, along with a bunch of muscles. So during the accident while my brain was bouncing around in my head (so to speak) it was yanking on the muscles and nerves.

Anyway, his solution for my vision problem had several parts. First, I had this terrible headache and pain that radiated from behind my right ear over my head and into my right eye. This was actually occipital neuralgia and I had to go to a pain doctor for that. Luckily, I was able to get better with a few treatments (a steroid and pain med injection couple with similar topical cream). Controlling the pain was crucial. Then he lowered my eye glass prescription so that I would put less pressure on my muscles. Essentially, things were blurry for a while and I wasn't even squinting to try to see things clearly. I just got used to things being blurry. Then I started a home program for my convergence insufficiency. The brock string is what worked best. So all of this plus a lot of time is what helped me get back to normal. I wound up having a new eyeglass prescription every 6 weeks until I was back to normal. I guess this was happening as my eyes were healing. The glasses would just stop working or start giving me a headache. The changes in prescription were small and drove the optometrists crazy, but they made a big difference for me. And then one day, the prescription was about what I had before.

Anyway, that worked for me, but everybody' injury is different. Stay strong!

Danny,

Thanks for reading my blog. I love your comments. They're right on the money for how I recovered (rest first, then expose and recover, etc.). The vitamins did nothing noticeable for me either.

For screen time, the big thing for me was finding an ophthalmologist with a clue, lowering my glasses prescription, giving my nerves time to heal (6-7 months), and using the string and beads (brock string) for my severe convergence insufficiency. And even with all of that, my new normal is that I have to wear computer eye glasses and I never had to before.

-Martin

Thanks for posting my blog here. I had so many unanswered questions during my recovery and very few resources and I'm happy to see the things that I learned getting out, and hopefully to the people who it can really help.

Three months ago I participated in 6 week concussion clinic that uses this emersion philosophy (expose yourself to everything that bothers you). The program I was in was very similar to what was described, and included vestibular, occupational, physical, psychological, and neuropsychological components to it.

I've been reluctant to post my personal thoughts as I haven't been doing very well. Keeping this short, this emersion philosophy did not work. At all. Outside of doing some physical activity and talking to people other than my family, this program had an escalating and wholly negative impact on me. By the end of the program I was an utter mess. I was back and continue to need narcotic analgesics on a daily basis, I had increased anger and frustration problems at home, nausea and disorientation issues were back, sleep disturbance became the norm (again), and, worst of all, my ability to tolerate any kind of stimulation was significantly diminished.

Fast-forwarding 3 months post clinic, things have not improved. I am more sensitive to noise and conversations, and my constant headaches are worse and more easily intensified.

So, when I see clinics and people touting these success stories, I think it's very important to remember that every concussion is unique. It will work for some, and it may not work for other. Whilst I'm glad that I tried it and saw it through, I cannot say it was beneficial to my recovery per se.