Sorry if this topic is too personal or not appropriate for this site but I've noticed a very particular issue recently. When I kiss and get intimate with my gf if the act is hard (her lips push back hard and fast) then I get a immediate slightly painful pressure in my forehead and sometimes feeling a little nauseas. I've never noticed this until the past month or two so maybe my heightened anxiety is partly to blame but could hard kisses me subconcussive or concussive impacts?

I remember Mark saying a sub concussive impact would be like clashing heads on a football field so I don't know if this would be comparable or if someones lips could produce a similar force is they were trying to. I know this issue might sound banal but it actually is kind of affecting my relationship since I've had to distance myself physically from my partner in order to avoid kissing as much as possible (although it does still happen). Could it possibly be tmj related rather than pcs?

If kissing were causing subconcussive or concussive impacts, we would have a global pandemic of brain injuries! Try to think of the wisdom that some members have expressed many times on this board: if an impact wouldn't have been a source of concern before PCS, it shouldn't be a source of concern now.

I also get relapses when my GF touches my head or kisses me a bit too hard. I am not sure what this sensitivity is due to (I don't think it is only anxiety), but there is no way it can cause a new brain injury or aggravate the existing one.

Ben, I have read several of your posts and I see that you have come here regularly in the last days with various sources of concern (the hairdresser, missing a step, your GF kissing you). I am not blaming you at all, I perfectly understand it as I have the same tendency and I have done the same thing often in the past. There are dozens of events every week for which I am tempted to ask here whether I sustained a new injury (things as stupid as: brushing my teeth too hard, nodding, combing my hair, hearing a horn...).

What I have found is that, when my willpower is strong enough to decide to ignore the relapse instead of obsessing over the symptoms, the symptoms disappear more quickly and I can usually go on with my activities. I find it very difficult. I often fail at it. But making the firm resolution that I will not let my day or week be ruined by a stupid and minor event is sometimes efficient. And part of this resolution consists of deciding not to come here to ask people whether I should be worried or not.

I am not at all saying that you should stop looking for advice and asking questions, I am just sharing that, in my experience, I am better off when I try to control the thought process that would otherwise bring me here several times each day to ask about innocuous events.

If you want to start a private conversation and support each other in this roller coaster I am happy to do it.

One final word: you could try an anti-inflammatory diet to reduce the sensitivity, some found it helpful.

Very best wishes.
Vania.

Hi from my limited experience here your question is very much valid! In my instance I am intrigued. I have yet to kiss a girl I am quite interested in with a tbi. Please read my thread if you want more info. I could totally see that it isn't a pathway your brain is used to recognizing. I am a massage therapist by trade. You may try having someone you trust press on the spot on your lip that would receive pressure during a kiss. Try to simulate the response, or it could be a more emotional response. It's very hard to tell. Please keep this thead alive! let us know how this progresses. Good luck with your lady!!!!
Kurtis Lowe

Thank you for the response. I'm not quite sure I understand what your saying with the pathways, care to elaborate more? You think it could be muscle related? or my brain is causing the physical response subcontiously? I am pretty sure this issue has some physiological cause since the intensity and strength of the kiss determines if i will have symptoms or not. If it is a soft kiss then i will have no issues but if my gf follows through and pushes with her lips then I will get symptoms and the immediate pain/pressure in my forehead and nose. I think anxiety could play a role also since I used to have awful rage/depression responses from this when it happened since I used to think anything physical that was causing symptoms was damaging to the brain but Mark has since taught me that not everything that causes symptoms is damaging (unless I suffer I very hard impact).

Thanks for this post. Although there is most likely an underlying physiological cause for this sensitivity, I think my problems are at least equally caused by anxiety. Whenever I have something like a very bumpy car/train ride, abrupt unexpected train halt, aggressive haircut, strong kiss, hard landing( etc...the list goes on and on), my first reaction is that I feel that I need to tell someone about it and need to seek reassurance from somewhere. Its like I'm physically not able to move on with my day unless I have some kind of validation that I have not damaged my brain further. Often my posts on this site come while I'm in a frantic furry of rage and dread. I will even have this reaction if the incident caused no real surge in symptoms but then my mind starts racing and that in turn bring the symptoms.

I recognize my behaviour is very unhealthy (this has been pointed out to me by my parents and multiple healthcare professionals-they tell me just to let go and live my life/not worry about these things) but its just not something I feel I can control sometimes. I think this all stems from the very high professional aspirations ive had for myself. When something like the things ive listed happens I tell myself "that's it, your brain is now too damaged to ever recover or be physically able to accomplish any of your dreams, this was the nail in the coffin" or "that's it, I definitely have cte from this and the impacts/jarrings ive had throughout my entire life". Its an awful loop and it means I walk around on eggshells all day, its been like this for a couple months now ever since the head sensitivity started.

Also I have a question. Normally I would never worry about the things I listed but given the fact I have a history with concussions and that I have this sensitivity, isn't it easier for me to get a concussion. I had always been under the impression that concussions compound and that the more concussions you've had, the easier it is to get subsequent ones. You guys say "if xxx caused concussions then there would be an epidemic of people getting concussions from this thing" but hasn't the average person never had any kind of head injury? So like wouldnt their threshold be much high and thats why simple things that bother us cause no issues whatsoever for them? Not trying to cause dispute, just interested in what you and/or Mark has to say.

Ben,

Answer you own question. Sit down for one minute and ask your self can kissing give me a concussion, you know deep inside what your conclusion will be.

I had a lot of difficulty defining what was hurting me or what was anxiety after my accident. I would draw from past experience pre accident and ask would this have given me a concussion before my accident? If not then you have to chalk it up to anxiety.

Anxiety will lie and lie to you all day and night, you need to recognize the lies, call them for what they are and tell yourself the truth. Sometimes it takes over and over again till the storm settles down.

Bud

BenW,

If you kiss with the force of a football linebacker running into a running back and clashing helmets or a corner hitting helmets with a wide receiver as both run at full speed, you would be spitting your teeth out like Chiclets (gum).

Hello Ben,

I could have written your post myself without changing any word, as I am struggling with the same issues. I don't have any magical solution to all this (I wish I had one) but let me share a couple of ideas. If you happen to find some things that work for you (which I really hope), please reciprocate!

1. Have you sought professional help with your anxiety? I recently started a psychotherapy, and although it is too early to see any tangible benefit, I am quite confident that the therapist will help me. She specializes in post-traumatic stress disorders, and she plans to combine standard psychotherapy (which will probably focus on the same issues that you mentioned, i.e. high aspirations, problems with self-image) with other methods (relaxation techniques, etc.).

2. Practicing meditation regularly would probably help a lot in our situation. That said, I must say that I have been unable to do it consistently, as I often find myself obssessing over my problems during 20 minutes instead of letting the thoughts go. To use the standard metaphor, the dark clouds stay in my sky instead of passing by. Finding a task that distracts me works better. But given the alleged fantastic potential of meditation for cases like ours, you might want to give it a try, perhaps again with a professional.

3. Whatever technique we learn or whatever professional help we get, I think we also need to strenghten our willpower to deal with these situations. Some scientists like to think of willpower as a muscle that can be trained. In that spirit, I do the following "exercise" sometimes, and it helps me. Perhaps you could try it as well.

When an innocuous event triggers you, and you feel a need to ask for immediate reassurance, refrain from doing so during 24 or 48 hours. Tell yourself something along the following lines: "I am not sure what just happened. It might have been a real bump, or most likely that was nothing at all. But I will try to live normally without thinking about it, and see what happens. This is just an experiment, and an exercise to challenge my willpower. I have nothing to lose by doing so: if I still feel lousy in 24/48 hours I will come to the board, ask my question and get a quick answer as always."

When I do it, I force myself not to talk about the triggering event to anyone, not even to my partner when she asks how I am feeling. In 99% of the cases my symptoms have disappeared by the deadline, and I am no longer thinking about why I was worried. This happened to you already with the hairdresser, and probably at many other occasions.

4. Another argument that I sometimes find reassuring is the following. There are hundreds of threads started on this board by anxious people like you and me following a minor trigger (a kiss, a haircut, etc.). These threads usually end with the OP writing something like "thank you for the reassuring words; you are right, it was nothing to worry about, and I am already feeling better". This happens all the time. My understanding of this situation is that these events recreate symptoms, for some physical cause. Perhaps because they create some inflammation. But they don't do any damage. And whether the symptoms persist or not depends upon our psychological reaction.

Regarding your final question, I am not an expert at all, but let me tell you what two neurologists answered when I asked that precise question. The neurologists told me that the injured brain is indeed believed by some scientists to be more sensitive to concussions and sub-concussive impacts, although they also said that the evidence is not unequivocal on that. But they also told me that, for an event to have serious long-term consequences for a PCS sufferer, it must still be the case that a significant force has been transmitted to the brain, and this force would also be a problem (i.e., it would create symptoms) for most healthy people.

Kissing does not enter this category. Think of all the teenagers who just discovered this pleasure and kiss their boyfriend/girlfriend with enthusiasm 100 times per day. If they were suffering from a subconcussive impact each time, all these people would suffer from significant brain damage.

Lastly, I think we need to accept that we will never have all the answers that we want. To me this is still a vain wish because I am unfortunately making little progress on that front. Nobody knows the causal effect of all our minor decisions on our health in 10, 20, or 40 years. Nobody knows what will happen in all the counterfactual scenarios ("what will happen to me because of this haircut/kiss/ride, etc.? what would have happened without it?"). But the big picture is clear, and we have some useful general guidelines to make our decisions: avoid hitting our heads, relieve stress, sleep well, eat healthy, etc.. This applies more generally than brain health, and in domains where we accept our lack of knowledge more easily: nobody knows the exact optimal proportion of proteins, carbs, and vegetables in our meals to prevent cancer; nobody knows by how many percentage points we increase our risk of lung cancer if we smoke 10 cigarettes per day during 10 years. But when we focus on the big picture, we have some useful guidelines in mind: we know that eating little sugar and lots of vegetables is good for us, and that smoking is bad. I think that we should strive to adopt a similar attitude regarding our brain injuries.

I hope this helps. Take care.

Thank you very much the support and advice, I really appreciate it. Whats your story with concussions if you don't mind me asking, and what is your daily routine/job now?

I think that's some very helpful advice. I am seeing a cbt therapist and I'm hoping to get some more benefits from that as time goes on. I have diagnosed anxiety/ocd so if cbt doesn't help I may also try and see someone who specializes in treating ocd. I may also start an ssri but I think I'll give the therapy more time before I go the medication route. I've tried meditation but like you I've had a lot of difficulty with it and don't always find it to be relaxing(sometimes it makes me more anxious).

Do you think if we were able to let loose and 'not care' as much, basically just live our day to day lives as best we can without thinking about concussions it would actually help our recovery more? It's kinda depressing for me cause I know that I don't have a choice but to trigger my symptoms every day since I have to take the subway and do a lot of walking and stuff like that. I think I should just tell myself that unless I have a strong direct impact to my head that causes me to see stars I'm not gonna worry about it. Maybe that would help.

I find the unknown to be very scary though. "will the brain fog ever lift or is this just the way I am now" is a really terrifying thought. CTE also, just thinking back to the number of concussions I may have had that went undiagnosed. I guess this is something the medication would help with. Also your self talk recommendation is very good advice, also knowing that I can post here if I absolutely need to is reassuring.

Anyways, thanks a lot for the post, I will definitely Re read it later to try and get what you said completely registered in my mind since my memory is not that great at the moment.

[Do you think if we were able to let loose and 'not care' as much, basically just live our day to day lives as best we can without thinking about concussions it would actually help our recovery more? ]

YES. For you, not caring as much will mean you still care about risks.

Your CBT therapist should be helping you put together a list of movements that are not concussive movements nor subconcussive movements.

If riding the train caused subconcussive impacts that lead to CTE, millions would have CTE. Those with CTE usually played sports and ignored their subconcussive helmet to helmet IMPACTS, not contacts or bumps or they routinely headed a soccer ball or they had head to head contact in rugby.

They did not get CTE from riding a train, walking on a hard surface or kissing aggressively or plopping their head down on a pillow or getting a haircut.

Get your hormones checked so you can rule that out or treat it if you are one of the rare cases that need hormone therapy.

Practice good sleeping posture so you do not stress your neck if that is a contributing factor.

YES, There have actually been studies that show that those who accept that they were injured and just move on with their lives recover much faster and better.