What causes a concussion to become chronic?

Symptoms of concussion should start to improve after 10 to 14 days. However, in some cases, this unfortunately does not happen, causing it to become what is known as a chronic or persistent concussion. Now this is one of the most mismanaged and misdiagnosed conditions out there often leaving everyone feeling frustrated and anxious due to the lack of improvement from treatment and the persistence of the symptoms such as headaches, migraines, brain fog, dizziness, and neck pain just to name a few.

What causes a concussion to become a chronic? Well, let's go through that today.

Hi, I’m Dr. Kevin, osteopath here at Melbourne Headache Solutions.

A concussion is a form of traumatic brain injury causing damage to the nerves or neurons in your brain. Symptoms can include things such as headaches, migraines, dizziness, brain fog, sleep, disturbances, and fatigue. These symptoms, however, should start to get better if not fully resolved by about 10 to 14 days. However, in 30% of these cases, they don't –leading it to become what is known as a chronic or persistent concussion syndrome. Now, big misconception about concussions that I see out there is that you need a direct impact to your head to have a concussion. However, the majority of concussions occur without direct head contact.

 

So, what causes a concussion to become chronic and linger longer than that those 14 days?

The three biggest causes are due to nervous system dysregulation, inflammation in the brain, as well as trauma and referral from the neck.

Let’s start with nervous system dysregulation. The trauma of a concussion causes stretching or shearing forces through the brain causing damage to the nerves and neurons. Think similar to say, jelly wobbling on a plate. This damage causes a disruption in your brain's ability to regulate itself between its sympathetic nervous system and its parasympathetic nervous system. That is your fight or flight or your rest and relax side of your nervous system and this contributes things such as that constant feeling of fatigue, brain fog, or restlessness. That is because your brain has struggled to coordinate between its periods of rest and its periods of stress.

The next point is inflammation. Like with all the injuries, there's inflammation involved, and this is a normal part of the recovery process. However, in some cases, the inflammation doesn't settle down. For example, things similar to that old ankle or shoulder injury you may have had in the past that never really felt normal again and it was always a little bit tender or sensitive to touch. In the case of a concussion, that injury is to the nerves and neurons in your brain causing inflammation to occur. And in some cases that inflammation can cause further information to occur, creating a continuous cycle that prolongs your symptoms of your headaches, dizziness, fatigue, et cetera.

Now, the third most common cause is the neck, and this is often a very overlooked aspect in chronic or persistent concussion syndrome. This is because the trauma can cause an injury or dysfunction to the joints of your neck, leading to sensitization of your nerves in your neck, as well as your brainstem. The brainstem is responsible for processing a lot of information and houses the nerves for your ears, your eyes and your balance, for example. So, when it becomes sensitized, the information from your eyes and from your balance nerves get muddled, leading to your headaches and migraines, dizziness, light, sign sensitivity, et cetera.

Because of these multiple different ways an acute concussion can turn chronic, it's very important that you get a thorough assessment from someone who has advanced training in the field of concussion management like myself, Dr. Kevin, as well as the rest of the team here at Melbourne Headache Solutions. That is so that we can find the exact cause and put you on the appropriate treatment plan to a quick recovery.

So, if you suffered from a concussion or know someone who has and want to learn more about the condition and get a bit of pathway to recovery, then come visit me or one of the other practitioners here at Melbourne Headache Solutions today.

I hope you find this helpful and if you have time, please share this around. Concussions are not very well understood and yet it so common today. So, we need to help as many people as we can to understand it and get help. If you have any questions or queries, please drop a comment down.