Hey everyone

I was just wondering if others have experienced this. I was lying in bed and my partner accidently felt something on her face and so she freaked out and wacked it off but because I was quite close to her, she basically, backhanded me quite fast into my jaw.

I didn't even worry about it and just went to bed as normal but woke up today extremely tired, dizzy and lightheaded.

I'm trying to put it down to work, tiredness etc but it is in the back of my mind that this knock caused an issue.

That sort of force shouldn't be enough for a concussion right? It was a decent wack but only lying down in bed

DeanBJJ,

Really.....?

You need to pose this question to a therapist who can help you with your struggle to use logical thought to dispel your anxieties.

You obviously do not believe anything I have said in the past.

Hi Dean, you're not crazy at all man what you describe is almost identical to my "condition".

As much as people wants to say it's anxiety it's not. As you've probably realised there is so little information on this will you issue of "ongoing brain sensitivity caused by concussions" or whatever you want to call it.

Let's get in touch and talk, it got me so depressed beyond belief for a long time when I first developed this but it does get a lot better.

Mitchell,

There is research and information about these events. The research shows that people who have a history of depression, anxiety, and OCD or have lived traumatic and stressful lives live with brain's that are easily triggered into inflammation, even without physiological cause. The emotional/psychological trigger sets off these inflammatory responses that cause the same symptoms as a true impacting concussion.

Dr Atkins did some of the research for the VA. UPMC has similar research.

Hi Mark, yes I'm sure that's true and have no doubt that anxiety is a factor. However it's inaccurate to dismiss that bumps and jolts in and of themselves can create neuro-inflammation and PCS symptoms.

The people who live with this know it for a fact. Anxiety and emotions aside, it can be 100% physiological.

But yes anything that gives you neuro-inflammation or makes it worse is a problem.

The inflammation is physiological. The trigger is not physical trauma. It can be physical touch. The trigger causes the remembered physiological response to manifest.

Inflammation is a body defense to trauma. The body responds in expectation of the trigger being real trauma. With people with a history of trauma, either physical or emotional, the body/brain has a hair trigger setting to go into inflammation mode.

Those bumps and jolts cause a startle or similar response that triggers the inflammation.

These sub-concussive impacts do not individually cause inflammation but when they repeat in a small time frame, they can. But, they can individually trigger the inflammatory response in a brain that is overly sensitive to a sensation of head contact.

When I see a person hit their head on TV or in a movie, it triggers a physiological response in my gut and sometimes a headache.

This is sometimes called somatoform disorder. The symptoms are real physiological symptoms.

I struggled miserably with this in the early years. A mild sensation of movement of my head would cause a moment of dizziness and the rest would follow. The more I paid attention to that triggering sensation, the worse it got.
I could not turn my head back and forth when cleaning up after my dogs in the backyard without experiencing this. The little bit of inner ear sensation would magnify. This was worst when I was not getting good quality sleep.

As I said, CBT therapy can help one re-orient the thought response to allow the brain's inflammatory response to calm.

I've seen many here on NT struggle with this for years until they finally sought therapy and maybe even medication to help with anxiety and OCD before they got relief. Then, after months of success, their thought patterns are strong enough that they can stop the medication. When that breakthrough came, they finally realized they were not thinking about every head contact.

Thanks for taking the time with your response Mark I can see you are very knowledgeable in this area. I don’t doubt what you are saying has merit and is probably true in some cases. But hear me out on these two points as I believe they prove what you are saying is not the solution in my case, and I assume others as well.

1. The severity of the impact will determine the severity and duration of my symptoms. I.e. if I got hit in the head with a tennis ball this would be on the very mild side, less severe symptoms that go away faster. Or if I went for a run (which I haven’t been able to do in years) from experimenting leaves me with more intense symptoms that take much longer to clear up perhaps a week or two.

If what you’re saying is true why wouldn’t the inflammation experience be the same in both cases. When either happens I’m not particularly thrilled but after years I never stress too much about any of it, I just accept and take the symptoms that follow. So you’re saying my sub-conscious reactions can create that much of a variation in consequence and the physical stimulus plays no role? I don’t buy that.


2. When I read or concentrate too hard this also gives bad inflammation and symptoms. I have zero trauma/PTSD/emotional response to something as passive as reading or doing a jigsaw puzzle. Again this is another point that I can’t see how your theory answers for this.

In my opinion clearly something went wrong from those multiple concussions and whether it be the body/brain trying to defend it self or something else, I’m left with an extreme sensitivity and the solution is not clear. It can’t merely be reduced to the cause being me “thinking about it”.

I know what you mean. I lived that for a few years.

Does the intensity of your emotional reaction increase with the intensity of the impact?

You may have other issues that increase inflammation.

The neck is a common cause of inflammation. Some claim 80% of head trauma includes symptoms caused by neck trauma.

The reading and concentrating struggle is called over-attending. The brain works hard and demands more blood flow and that can change fluid pressures in head.

Anxiety also causes extra blood flow to the head.

You may have a mix of all the above. Don't try to make sense of this. There is no linear progression in symptoms vs causes.

Your struggle with running suggests trauma to the joint between C-1 and the occipital facet of the skull. This joint can be traumatized and require years of disciplined postural choices to heal.

One of my injuries was a vertical drop that compressed my spine from my pelvis to my skull. It took years of discipline to stabilize that joint. Imaging never showed a problem but my physical therapist could tell that the joint was unstable.