It's been a while since I last wrote here, which is usually a good sign. I thought I'd post up a brief report on how things are now.

My PCS was pretty bad to begin with, nausea, raging tinnitus, insomnia, fatigue - couldn't walk around the block without collapsing in the chair when I got back. A couple of times in the first two weeks my legs stopped working if I walked too far which was pretty weird. Then the anxiety and depression hit and I thought I was going mad. Most of my severe symptoms faded after about six months. The fatigue took longer. After two years I was left with insomnia and tinnitus.

However, over the last few months things have improved another notch and now I feel a whole lot better. My mind is clear and relaxed and I'm getting myself back to the person I once was. It goes to show that you can't put a timescale on recovery and you can still improve years later. I still have some tinnitus, sometimes it's so faint I don't know it's there, but exercise or mental work, like programming, makes it spike for a short while. My sleep is still crummy but I get enough now.

It's been a bewildering period of my life, hard to put into words, it feels like I've lost three years. I think having a sense of humour and stubborn blind faith have got me through it.

Things that I think have helped:

• Quitting caffeine - helped with anxiety
• Quitting alcohol - it's neurotoxic and disturbs sleep (but might imbibe again soon)
• Walking in the countryside - improves circulation without overloading the brain
• Vitamins - B12, B6, Iron, Magnesium, C and D - Especially B complex
• Resting as much as possible - mindfulness if you like
• Rebuilding bike engine - very mind absorbing
• Gardening - low impact exercise and peaceful
• Watching comedies and laughing - relieves tension promotes endorphins

Things that don't help:

• Computers
• Aerobic exercise - took me a while to work this out
• Friends - because you look normal they don't understand why you can't go mountain biking like you used to
• Doctors - as above
• Stress of any kind