Being told debilitating symptoms that last for months at a time are solely the result of anxiety is, in my opinion, dangerous. It can send people into a despair. This happened to me repeatedly, and I literally thought I was losing my mind.

I realize that some folks on here have a "fear" of hitting their head, with no real history of lasting symptom exacerbation to back it up, but it sound like this member is seeing a true, lasting symptom regression.

There's been some posts on situations like this. Some folks are sensitive to sudden movements (falls, etc.), and some are sensitive specifically to head contact. Either way, it's usually an indication that something else is going on (eg a neck injury that needs to be addressed or some other pathology that is being triggered, like migraine)

Don't give up. Your brain is not being damaged. The brain can create some really disturbing sensations and symptoms that feel like they will last forever, but they can and do resolve with proper diagnosis and treatment.

sensitive-jolting-information?

The simple physics say a 4 month old cannot cause a concussion or even subconcussive impact.

But, the mind can cause problems by memorizing symptoms of a prior event and replaying those symptoms with the right trigger.

Sometimes, the trigger causes the person to 'look' for these symptoms.

I guarantee that anybody who looks for concussion symptoms will find them, whether they are real or not.

I don't deny the symptoms but the anxiety that often is triggered by those memorized symptoms needs to be addressed.

The symptoms are more of a PTSD like flashback. The continuing thoughts of, "Did I do brain damage?" and the attempts to justify those questions can lead to a spiral down into dysfunction.

Regarding Concussion Anxiety Syndrome. There has been extensive research into the impact depression and/or anxiety play in symptoms manifesting. The correlation is up to 80%.

Learning to recognize triggers and take appropriate immediate steps to mitigate any progressions is very important. I have rescue meds that I used after some triggers as I sensed things progressing.

So, as BW says, we need to take those steps... Migraine meds, thought modification, environment modification, and such can go a long way in minimizing the progression.

Often, the person is unwilling to seek the therapy to learn how to moderate these events. They may not have insurance that covers such therapy and are unwilling to pay out of pocket but end up losing wages for lost work days that exceeds the out of pocket costs for therapy.

There's more going on than just anxiety. It's totally understandable that someone would have sky high anxiety after a head bump - they have new symptoms and don't know why so they worry and that feeds back into the symptoms and makes it worse. So I'm not t denying the mind-body connection.

But the anxiety explanation falls apart when you apply it to more severe symptoms resulting from minor head bumps. I was bedridden for 4 years barely able to open my eyes from head bumps. (Bedridden for 11 months after the 3rd head bump, 15 months after the 4th bump, 26 months after the 5th bump. You can read about it in my blog.) And the impact force wasn't enough to do any significant damage.

How do you explain that? That's not anxiety. Something else is going on. I think it's inflammation. But not knowing makes anxiety worse.

There are many factors that contribute to concussion symptoms so by having a better understanding we can provide better treatment and intervention.

Drew, Your history defies explanation. It always has. Nobody on NT has ever experienced anything even close to your experience. It is like you had an awake version of locked in syndrome. It is extremely rare but real. Trying to compare it to the struggles of common impacts is not of value.

Someone mentioned Microglial Priming in another thread -
The inflammation from microglial priming will cause symptoms and there doesn't have to be a forceful impact for that to happen.

When trying to understand a complex problem, it helps to examine extremes. And if you look at more severe cases of PCS, they often involve multiple head hits. The impact forces weren't enough to cause severe symptoms, and anxiety alone wouldn't cause severe symptoms either.

For example, what about other people who complain of having trouble reading computer screens. It's not that they can't read, they just can't read very much. That's called neurofatigue and it's a sign of inflammation.

Same in my case. The symptoms have mostly been the same whether I was in bed or not - mild headache and dizziness (shaking sensation). What changes is the capacity for activity such as conversation (extreme neurofatigue). So basically there was so much inflammation that I couldn't get out of bed.

In this article about neuroinflammation and PCS symptoms, they conclude that a new term, Post-Inflammatory Brain Syndrome (PIBS), is necessary to describe Post Concussion symptoms - A review of the neuro- and systemic inflammatory responses in post concussion symptoms: Introduction of the “post-inflammatory brain syndrome” PIBS - ScienceDirect They also discuss microglia and how repeated mild impacts result in reduced cognitive function.