First time posting, thanks in advance for reading my long, scattered post -

Frustrated with ongoing symptoms, I got on google today and came across this site. I don’t really know where to begin and I’m not sure what I’m looking for by making a post.
This is all new to me and I don’t know what I’m suppose to do anymore, I thought by now, I would be back to work and feeling my self again. That doesn’t seem to be the case.

A little about what happened
I’m a 26 year old female, I fell in an icy parking lot and woke up on my back. When I opened my eyes a woman was above me on the phone calling an ambulance. I was confused, my ear was ringing and my head was incredibly sore.

I was taken to the emergency room, given something through an IV for nausea and morphine for my headache and sore back. The doctor told me that the MRI looked good and that I had a concussion. She gave me some sheets on concussions, and I wast told to rest, take advil, minimize phone/TV/computer and to visit my family doctor in one week. The advil was not touching the headache at all so I started taking some Tylenol 3’s to tide me over until I got to see my family doctor. The family doctor told me all my symptoms were normal, continue to rest , prescribed perocetes for my constant headaches and I was told to come back in one week. I went back after another week had passed, described my symptoms and was told that I have post concussion syndrome. Again I left the doctor with more percolates for the non stop headaches, was told to rest more, no stress, continue wearing ear plugs whenever necessary and was told to come back in another week. Each time I’m told this is normal and that it takes time.

I’m so frustrated with the headaches all day, the foggy/slow feeling, the random dizziness, the exhaustion, not being able to multi task, the heightened sounds, the emotions/crying, being agitated,(Wouldn’t everyone feel agitated if they had a headache all day??) , not feeling coordinated, all of this isn’t NORMAL to me.

I feel helpless, useless and wish there was something more I could be doing. When I actually do stuff, dishes, maybe some laundry, baking some cookies, going to the store, I’m tired afterward. Sometimes I’ll take a nap. The following morning, after focusing on decorating some cookies, I woke up with a pounding headache. Worse than the previous morning. Would it be fair to assume it was from over concentrating while simply baking? I thought it was calming. I’m trying to learn what sets off these headaches, these overwhelming feelings...

Rest just doesn’t seem like a good enough answer to me anymore

Today was eventful - I went ahead with a manicure appointment that I had booked weeks ago. Right away I felt like I wanted to be back at home. A baby was crying, doors slamming, people entering in and out of the building, multiple people talking/laughing throughout the hallway. I felt anxious, my heart was beating faster, my eyes started to well up with tears, my head throbbed from my headache, I felt overwhelmed. I kept it together throughout the appointment for the most part (I cried a bit when my nail tech asked how I’ve been feeling) but I made it through and dealt with the loud electric nail file sounds and the vacuum sounds from the dust vents.
After a two hour appointment, I got home, took a percocet for my insane headache and went to sleep for five hours, right in the middle of the day. I was so exhausted

Before this concussion I had a busy life, fast paced job, loved going out and doing things, and It’s a struggle to decide every time to stay home because I know going out to the grocery store,out for dinner etc will be too overwhelming.

(Words I’m sure my family, boyfriend and friends have become annoyed with - “It will be to overwhelming”, “it was too much”, “I have such a bad headache”)

My family and my boyfriend have been as supportive as they can be, but I’m sure they’re equally worn out, dealing with my emotions and irritability. I don’t want to be a bourdon or a bother anymore. I use to be so independent and I feel like a bunch of that has been taken away from me. Everyday someone says “Feeling better today? Feeling better than yesterday? “. Every day I wake up feeling like ****, foggy, headache, just not my self at all. I desperately want to feel like my self again

I know some of these questions won’t have an answer, but I’d love some insight

- Why am I still having these symptoms 16 days after hitting my head?
- Any thoughts on the pills I’m taking for the headaches?
- Is there anything other than rest that I can do to help the seemingly slooooooow recovery process?
- Should I put my self in those overwhelming uncomfortable situations, like going for a manicure, going to the grocery store etc? Is it best to just do these normal every day things?
- How can I go for dinner with my family, and focus on the conversations happening? I’ve tried ear plugs to dull out the sound
- What can I do to help that overwhelming feeling? How long do most people feel that for?
- I’ll admit, I’m sad, I get down on my self and my situation, I’m bored (especially going from a busy lifestyle to this…)I’m frustrated with this concussion. I’m trying to stay positive, but some days its hard


Thank you for listening,

Thedash,

Welcome to NeuroTalk. Sorry to hear of your injury.

EVERYTHING you are experiencing is quite normal for a concussion. You do need to continue to live a quiet life. The Nail Salon is definitely not good. Far too much stimulation. Multi-tasking is not good nor will it be successful. You are still early in your recovery. Many take up to 6 weeks to recover, some, much longer.

The Percocet is not commonly used. The addictive properties can be a problem as can the tendency to develop a tolerance needing more as time goes on. You could try aspirin and Tylenol combined at maximum dose.

It sounds like you need to find a concussion clinic. They are often affiliated with sports medicine clinics.

Also, you may very likely have injured your upper neck. This can contribute to headaches. A chiropractor may be able to help if the chiro uses gentle techniques. Some physical therapists can help. You want someone with good skills with whiplash. If you have spots behind your ears that are tender to touch, that means you have injured your neck. The injury will not show up on x-ray or MRI so don't let a doctor say you do not have an injury. Your sore back indicates a high probability of an upper neck injury

Read the Vitamins sticky at the top. It has lots of good information.

Simply put, Your brain needs to work at a severely reduced speed. It can only tolerate one stimulus at a time. One voice at a time, no background sounds (radio or other music), one task (no multi-tasking), minimal visual stimulation (grocery stores are visually overwhelming) until it recovers.

Good quality sleep is vital. Drug induced sleep and naps can be counter productive. The brain does a lot of recovering during the slow wave cycle of sleep. Disrupted sleep or drug induced sleep does not have good sleep cycles. The best sleep is at your normal sleep times. If naps make it so you do not sleep as deeply at night, the naps need to be reduced. If your naps have good dream stages and you wake refreshed, they may be OK.

So, try to relax. It may help to ice your upper neck frequently. The vitamins sticky has a recipe for making crushable ice packs. 15 minutes on, 30 minutes off, repeat.

And, please let us know how you are doing. This can be a miserable time when nobody understands what you are going through. We do know.

My best to you.

This condition is tricky. Especially for people who have only recently been injured such as yourself, it's confusing, worrying and frustrating. With many people with pcs, the main enemy is anxiety. This can and will make your symptoms much, much worse. The symptoms are generally connected to your emotions. Stress can also bring on symptoms and slow down recovery. It may help you if you can learn some relaxation techniques, meditation is good, focusing on breathing and slowing your body down. Try not to get stressed and continuously worried. Your body may take some time to heal and you may have to make some adjustments in the mean time. Patience and remaining as calm as possible is key. Learning about what triggers symptoms (and ultimately going back to to the fear feeds symptoms-symptoms feed fear cycle) and learn work arounds or avoidance to speed recovery. If you can, audio books are good. Learning to enjoy slow and simple things is also good, but you must learn what these are.

You will improve, it may be a very slow process (I am very much improved after 15 months) but keep calm. Ask others for help, but don't ask them to join you in misery whilst you recover, they won't. The more roots you put in misery, the more you'll stay miserable. Know that you can beat this, know that you will improve and heal. All my best wishes in your recovery, it's a hard time, but don't give up.

Listen to these guys. I was EXACTLY where you are only a few months ago. This site, and the amazing people in it helped a GREAT DEAL! My only advice is have patience and be your own advocate. Find the RIGHT help and don't worry about how your injuries are affecting other people for the time being. You have to focus on you right now. Your loved ones will support you. Worrying just makes it even more difficult. In my case, I found an amazing Chiropractor that was properly trained in sports concussion therapy. It was a gradual process, but I am now on my way to healing. Laying around, resting, shutting myself off from everything like a hermit only made the process longer, I feel. Honestly, keep insisting on finding the RIGHT person who will know how to help you retrain your brain. Don't just keep listening to the same person who is not making you feel helped. And try to find some positives to keep you going. I wish you a full and speedy recovery. And I look forward to an update.
ps- if you can find it, read the article written by Adam Escolet in the Sports Tribune. It is a good read and you will know you aren't alone in this battle and things can get better even if they feel permanent right now.

Sent from my SM-T110 using Tapatalk

You are certainly not alone. You've come to the right place. Try to calm down and lean on that good emotional support you mentioned. 16 days is extremely early; some sources say give it a full 3 months rest. Check in and update us from time to time. Read as many threads as you find relevant; you'll learn a lot. You might even make important new friends -- all too often loved ones don't get it, whereas someone who shares a similar condition does.

Protect your head. Avoid any violent shaking or vibration. (Mild blows or shaking probably OK.) I got an extremely unlucky additional blow to my head--which normally wouldn't have meant anything but coming when it did made me worse--four weeks after my initial injury.

Your experiences, e.g. nail salon, are not only very common for PCS but, particularly since you mentioned this didn't seem like the usual you, it's possible much of what you are feeling is actually generated by PCS, so if you can, you might want to try new mental tactics--like questioning negative thoughts. Some people experience disorders never before experienced, such as anxiety, dark or crazy thoughts, depression, and the like.

The frustration with the slowness of healing has hit many of us, so plan this out accordingly. Me, I'm two months and a week into mine (actually 5 weeks 5 days since my last head blow) and they call me early.

May all of us get our lives back . .

Dash,

Stay calm and be patient....heads are not anything like broken bones so don't try to compare to other injury recoveries.

As far as being busy...I was too. Snow and water ski, flying, gym. It all came to a grinding halt, couldn't even leave the house!

Go with the flow and handle what recovery presents you, all the rest will return.

It was hard for me to not think of myself as a lesser person because I could not do my previous activities, don't fall into that trap. Use your normal activities as a goal, not a comparison. For now you gotta do what you gotta do to get well.

Oh ya, welcome to our club!

Bud

What others have said is very useful advice, and I don't really need to add to that. But I can add some personal inputs from a milder TBI than many here suffered. You need to buckle down quite a lot and accept the situation you're in, thats hard. For the first timers I think most of us (I know I did) spend the first few weeks just trying to understand wtf was happening, as the doctors sure aren't useful and they seem to think its more a 2 week injury for some reason.

Try and let go of as many 'normal life' things as you can and focus on knowing you'll need to rest, this unfortunately will be a big change hopefully only short term.

In terms of getting better, try and think in weeks not days. For instance, is your headache better than it was 3 weeks ago? Then you're making progress.

The boredom I found was the worse thing and I did things like use the computer, watch tv etc to entertain myself that I probably shouldn't have. There is no real cure for this. Try and rest as much as you can especially in the first month or two.

I do suspect in a few months you'll be feeling a lot better than you do now. I know that sounds like an eternity, but this is a life changing injury, even if only short-medium term. I don't know your relationship situation, but if he isn't supportive and caring i'd remember that and consider if its something you want. I do think after time has passed people will come around to caring, even if initially it just seems like "a hit on the head" to them.

I was hurt in 1999 so I don't know what Drs prescribe now, but my Neurologist had me take a low dose of Elavil (Amitryptyline) every night because brain injury impairs your ability to sleep and Elavil helps that, I was sleeping 18 hours a day before taking it. You definitely need a neurologist involved, opiates are bad because the injury makes you more susceptible to addiction, a Dr should know better. When I finally got with a good Doc she had me take 4 Excedrin Migraine tablets with 2 10 mg pills of Famotidine up to twice a day, this is magic for 50% of us. A tea of passion flower, cinnamon, and cardamom can be calming.
Do stuff. Life is the best therapy. I learned how to build a computer from components and built it, then learned how to make a webpage. I learned Spanish. I slowly made big gardens all around my house. My Doc was a physical therapist when she had a near fatal brain injury, then ended up spending the money she got from the insurance company to pay for medical school.
Be patient and be willing to work because recovery is hard, and don't hold on to your old self, be assured the new self you are making is going to be a very special person.

Marfa1954,

Welcome to NeuroTalk. How are you doing ? Most on the PCS forum never see the posts on the introductions forum but I found and read your introduction post. You've had a tough recovery.

Are you having any struggles currently that we can help you with ?

I found that sleep was my best friend.