Four Months After a Concussion, Your Brain Still Looks Different Than Before | Hacker News Reader

Four Months After a Concussion, Your Brain Still Looks Different Than Before

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52 pointsaronvox31 comments

I've sustained between 2 and 4 concussion in the past 6 years. 2 were clinically diagnosed and I self-diagnosed 2 more after smaller accidents that had similar week-long symptoms. All occurred during soccer practices and games.

The prospect that I've done cumulative lasting damage to my brain absolutely terrifies me. Similar to the way a model would be terrified if they sustained burns on their face. My brain is what makes me money, my brain is what makes me proud, my brain provides pleasure through reading, writing and programming. It's horrifying to think that I've somehow caused my brain to be performing at a lower level than it would be otherwise.

I don't know why I'm writing this. It's just scary. I still play sports (no longer soccer) and bicycle everywhere but I'm far more careful and reserved than I would be otherwise.

Be careful out there, wear a helmet, and take care of your brain.

It is concerning. I've been concussed by a baseball to the head as a teenager and these emerging long-term effects to the brain kind of freak me out. Probably shouldn't have took a few more headshots after that, but tis life I guess. Funny how our strongest asset is also the most fragile.

Well said.

Finding the balance is a struggle for me. Is increased risk of dementia and other disorders when I'm older worth it for me to continue mountain biking while I'm still young? I don't know. What risks are worth taking?

Here's something I don't get about some high-risk sports: is the feeling you get doing that really irreplaceable? Aren't there a ton of other things which given some time would be just as fun?

About 5 years ago I suffered a concussion from a motorcycle accident (I had a helmet, only thing that saved me).

All my friends said it took me almost 2 years before I was back to "my old self". It was weird experiencing it firsthand as well. My last memories of the accident was planting my left hand on the pavement trying to save the fall. Thankfully my nice Held gloves have tacks on the palm so it wasn't a big deal but the next memory I had was waking up with a cat on my chest staring right at me in my buddies girlfriends house.

I think the cat wanted to eat me, those eyes /shudder. Anyway, PSA is always wear a helmet, that and hip armor, wear lots of that, I walked like an old man for a month. But for a few years after that accident I basically felt a fog in my brain.

I really don't like the idea of sports like football after that where people pile on concussions. I just don't see how it could be a thing that couldn't be detrimental.

I really don't like the idea of sports like football after that where people pile on concussions. I just don't see how it could be a thing that couldn't be detrimental.

There's a high school that I pass on the way to the dog park, and on Mondays the team is always outside for football practice. Watching them damage themselves right in front of the school breaks my heart. I am convinced that American Football is going go suffer the same drop in popularity as boxing within the next decade.

In defense of High School football and younger, most of the players aren't physically developed enough to cause and long term damage to themselves or anyone else (in terms of head related injuries). College and pros is another story. That's why as you get farther along in your football career the less you have full contact practices. In college (and I would bet my hat that it is the same for pros) sometime around week 2 you are pretty much done with full contact hitting in practices (their might still be some hitting at 75% speed to work on form).

I played football in college and I think they managed the players' health pretty well. Granted I was at a smaller less competitive D3 school but, all the same, I never felt fear that I was going to suffer any long term head injuries (also I never got a concussion in 8 years of playing).

> In defense of High School football and younger, most of the players aren't physically developed enough to cause and long term damage to themselves or anyone else (in terms of head related injuries).

That's yet unclear, see research by Dr. McKee: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sports/league-of-den...

As I mentioned in another comment, everything I said was speculation based on playing in high school and college. I don't have any strong evidence to back up my claims. That said, I'm skeptical of the numbers in the article you linked. I could be wrong, but in my experience players in high school were much more likely to report injuries than in college. Especially head injuries. Friends of mine in college, on multiple occasions, had headaches that lasted more than a week and refused to report them for fear of being benched or missing playing time. High school was the opposite, players would go to the trainers all the time for every little thing.

I can't argue with numbers, but I am just not convinced the method of data collection is accurate.

>In defense of High School football and younger, most of the players aren't physically developed enough to cause and long term damage to themselves or anyone else (in terms of head related injuries).

Do you have any evidence to back up this speculation?

In fairness I'm speculating about the damage. For all I know I am overestimating the severity of the collisions I see; I just have a strong intuition motivated teens play hard and that repeated impacts add up to eventual damage.

Nope none at all except personal experience playing at both high school and college level. That was total speculation on my part. Head injury data is really tough to gather accurately since the farther along in your career you get the more pressure you have to "play through it". So I would estimate (again total speculation on my part) that less than 1/2 of the concussions that actually happen get reported on a collegiate level (no idea about the NFL).

More personal notes: In college I knew a few guys who would have headaches for days but refuse to go to the doctor or trainer for fear of getting benched. That was the exact opposite in High school for me. Players would go to the trainer for every little bump and bruise.

Like skizm, I'm pretty sure High School isn't going to be the big problem.

I think American Football is very much in need of a rethink of their "safety" equipment. You can have a full contact sports[1] without the damage done. A football player is now wearing hard armor and it is not helping.

Boxing isn't less popular because of injuries. It is less popular because it isn't on ABC every week and it is all pay-per-view. Its an event sport that is not worth the money to pay for the events.

1) calling these blood sports makes for a problem when real blood sports are discussed - hyperbole and the brain shouldn't be mixed

For a more barbaric sport like MMA?

According to the (nat geo?) video below mma and boxing hits should be about the same with all else being equal. Combing this with mma's grappling and one almost wonders if, despite the increased blood, it might be less concussion inducing.

No doubt their bodies are being hammered and worn down though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRmOOWPTRBs

Among the MMA community it used to be common knowledge that MMA was safer, concussion-wise. There were no good studies to back that up, however. Now they're starting to come by, and it seems they might be just about the same. Here's one: http://www.cagepotato.com/myth-busting-is-mma-really-safer-t...

I agree MMA is barbaric but IMHO it doesn't have anything like the status that boxing used to have. When I was growing up in the 1970s, world heavyweight title fights were staged and broadcast internationally and attracted attention comparable to Olympic contests.

MMA will get there. The modern sport of MMA is at best 20 years old this year, much less with the current rules and weight categories. It is the fastest growing sport league in the US, and I'll agree this is easy with all the others being much older and established. However, among 18-34 year-old fans, the UFC is already more popular than the NHL and NASCAR.

Being hit by a glove with fists wrapped like rocks, and simply bare fists, is a very different experience. Fists hurt and can break your skin, but with gloves it's like your whole head is being rocked and is very disorientating.

This is my experience, also. If you don't block and someone hits you with MMA gloves, you're probably going to have a cut or superficial damage on your face. With boxing gloves, especially the 16oz ones that most people spar with, you can take many, many hits to the head with no visible damage. The extra padding isn't protecting your head, it's protecting the puncher's fists.

When I was nine (now 27), I was hit by a car and suffered a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) to the left temporal lobe. I was in a coma for five days; had anterograde amnesia for weeks, maybe a few months. My parents later told me that my personality changed dramatically.

I don't think many nine-year-old kids are introspective enough to know what their personality is like, and never was it mentioned that my personality reverted back to normal. I have no idea what I was like or what I would become. It's interesting to think about.

It took a long time for me to look back and think "what the hell?"

Similar story. It took me about two years to fully "feel healthy" after a (or possibly many) rugby concussions my senior year of college. The day after my concussion, I felt drunk, wasted actually. When I woke up and went to the bathroom, I had to lean my hand on the wall just to stay upright. I was wobbling around campus for about two weeks after the incident. Always off balance, pretty much worrying the entire time that my CT scan and MRI's missed a brain bleed. I shouldn't have felt this weird, but they continued to say everything was normal. That was the worst part: The feeling that something was terribly wrong, but every single doctor told me that I was fine.

Five years later, I feel relatively okay. I barely ever notice any lasting affects of the concussion. Every so often, I have a bad delay in recalling a word I am thinking of. One beer makes me feel really weird, although the feeling seems to go away after having two or three. And ejaculating, for some odd reason, gives me a headache.

I've experienced similar feelings with the inability to recall words quickly. I wonder whether I should attribute it to graduating University and thus not using more expansive vocabulary normally or to the concussions I sustained my final year there.

How did your concussion affect the way you live? Do you still play sports?

RE: word recall - it might not be related. It's just something I've noticed of myself. I probably attribute it to the concussions since I never really explored other alternatives.

I didn't play sports for about two years. It was very frustrating when I thought I was close, but still had some lingering effects. Around the time I stopped having bad headaches, I would try to play basketball once every two weeks hoping everything was okay, but would come home with terrible headaches. I kept trying, hoping something would change, and after a while ,the headaches subsided in intensity. At that point, I started increasing the frequency of playing, and things, over time, became normal again. Now I play sports normally.

There's a few odd things that I really can't stand now. Fans blowing in my face (sometimes treadmills at my gym have automatic fans that turn on). I can't headbang to heavy metal music because it hurts me later on. I think it's the specific movement when I do.

The worst part about the concussion is that it took away my way of life. Before it, I was playing sports or exercising at least five days a week. It was a part of my identity. I had a really tough year trying to move my passions from sports to startups and business. It worked out; however, and now I am able to enjoy all of them.

This seems like the best spot in the tree to hijack, belatedly.

I got a concussion about six months ago playing hockey and am still recovering, not even working full time. I did a battery of neuropsychological testing about four month post-concussion and verbal fluency, specifically coming up with words starting with a given letter, was one thing they tested. They guessed at my baseline performance, then were able to pick word usage, among a few others, out as areas I'm now deficient in. My recollection is they said it was a common pattern to see.

I do have to say it's good to read of people who've come through this and feel normal again, even if it takes a long time.

I've had quite a few in high school and early college. The best part is the manic and depressive episodes. After a really bad one during wrestling in high school, I had some pretty amazing highs and really bad lows. Best time of my life was sitting on the back porch and giggling at the sun for 2 hours. I was totally ecstatic about the sun. The worst was all the suicidal thoughts. Think a heart monitor. The highs were soooo good, but most of the time it was bad depression. I agree with the other posters here, it took me about 2 years after each bad hit to get over it and return to normal. I'd say it's a logarithmic curve to a new percentile. IE you never really get all the way to the new normal. I also have lasting short term memory loss, problems discerning things apart at close distances, and hearing issues in loud and chaotic environments like bars and family gatherings. My mind is just not there and will likely never be. Oh well, I guess I'm just stuck in Hard Mode. I don't play rubgy anymore, but damn I want to. I know I can't but I miss the pitch everyday I am here. I loved it all, and I still do. Again, hard mode.

A bit offtopic for HN, but it really does drive the point home: Football? Boxing? Hockey?

These are blood-sport.

There may be a technological solution, there may be a rules-revision solution (hockey in particular does not need to be brutally violent to be a good game) but the current approach isn't right.

i agree with you that they are bloody sports and there are inherent major risks in them. I posted above about my experiences with wrestling and rugby, arguably very violent sports. I want to say that I know they are 'blood sports' and I love them even through what happened to me. Though I cannot play rugby these days, there is not one that goes by that I do not wish to be out on the pitch.

I am having trouble explaining this, I think. But even though these sports are bloody, and probably because they are, I want to play them. The thrill, the camaraderie, the team and the struggle, the pitting of man against man in an arena, it all is what I want. I can prove myself on a rugby pitch or a wrestling mat in a way I cannot elsewhere in life. Again, words are failing me here. But I want you to know that I know the risks, I knew them before my concussions, I have lived with the results of the decisions, and I still miss it and yearn for it. I love playing these 'blood' sports.

I've helped friends with this. The most important item is for patients to get copies of their MRIs and related records.

These are crucial for long term follow up.

And if you're very, very lucky, the new look is an improvement: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/22/lachlan-connors-mus...

Is your brain supposed to look the same after four months without a concussion?

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