What causes acute and chronic concussions?

After a concussion, you should start to feel better after 10 to 14 days. However, in 30% of these cases, this does not happen. And when this occurs, it's considered a chronic or persistent concussion. This leaves people feeling very frustrated, anxious, and suffer from headaches, dizziness, brain fog, neck pain, and irritability. So, what causes an acute concussion and what causes it to become chronic? Well, let's discuss that.

Hi, my name is Dr. Kevin, osteopath here at Melbourne Headache Solutions.

A concussion is a form of traumatic brain injury causing damage to the nerves and neurons in the brain. This often leaves people with feelings of dizziness, brain fog, sleep, disturbances, light, and sound sensitivity, blurred vision, as well as headaches and migraines. Concussion occurs when you have a rapid and sudden jolt to your head and neck causing you to move quickly and then suddenly slow down and stop. Dues to this trauma, there is a stretching and shearing forces going through your brain. Think of it like watching jelly wobbling on a plate and that wobbling and stretching movement damages the delicate nerves and neurons in your brain. Concussions most commonly occur and are seen in things such as say falls, motor vehicle accidents, sporting injuries, as well as other direct impacts to your head.

Two big myths around concussions are that you need to be knocked unconscious to be concussed and that you need to be hit in the head for concussion to occur. Unfortunately, both are not true as you can still suffer a concussion even without going unconscious and even without direct impact to your head.

For example, when you're in a theme park ride and your seatbelt stops your body from moving, but your head is still thrown forwards and back again. After 10 to 14 days, your symptoms should start to get however, in 30% of cases, this does not happen. And if this happens, it's considered a chronic or persistent concussion syndrome. This is one of the most commonly misdiagnosed and mismanaged conditions that I see. And it occurs due to several different factors.

The first one being nervous system dysregulation. Due to the initial trauma of the nerves in the brain, there is showing to be a disruption in your body's ability to regulate itself between its sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system. That is your fight and flight or your rest and relax branch of your nervous system. This contributes to that constant feeling of fatigue as your brain has struggled to coordinate between periods of rest and periods of stretch

The other fact that is inflammation. Like with all injuries, there's inflammation involved in the recovery process. However, in some cases, that inflammation does not settle down similar to that old ankle sprain you’ve got that never got back to normal and was always a little bit tender to touch. In the case of a concussion, the injuries to the nerves of your brain cause inflammation to occur. And that inflammation can unfortunately cause further inflammation creating a continuous cycle that prolongs the symptoms of headaches, dizziness, fatigue, et cetera.

Another overlooked cause of persistent concussions is the neck. It's often a very overlooked aspect as well. The trauma causes dysfunction to the top three joints of your neck leading to sensitization of your brainstem. Your brain is responsible for processing lots of information and houses the nerves for your ears, eyes, and balance. So, when it becomes sensitized, information from your eyes and your balance nerves, get muddled leading to symptoms such as headaches, migraines, and dizziness.

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.