[flyboy50]

In my experience with concussions (from playing hs water polo) it's a good idea to rest for a while. The rule of thumb we use is to wait until you stop getting headaches/nausea and then rest another week. After that you're good to go.

I'm surprised you didn't get more info from the doctor.

Try to enjoy the break, it's important to let your brain relax.

 

[mandasol]

You may also wish to Google or, better, ask your doctor about Second Impact Syndrome before riding for some time...

That's kind of scary. I went to the emergency room and was told I was fine, but they usually don't go into much detail in emergency rooms. I think I'll follow up with my regular doc and stay off the bike for a little while. The indoor trainer is a little boring but I guess I can catch up on some tv news while I'm at it, since I haven't watched any tv for the past year because of our new baby -- another reason to play it safe.

Thanks for all the advice.

 

[uzziefly]

The dangerous part about concussions is getting ANOTHER one while you have not recovered. That can be absolutely dangerous and fatal even.

I had a mild one 2 years back when I crashed while drafting at 25mph. Needless to say, cracked Giro helmet, road rash. I had kinda double vision and a headache that went on and off. Glad you weren't hurt worse for sure.

 

[DrSmile]

I've had 3 concussions in my lifetime, the last one being the worst (ski jumping crash, and I was wearing a helmet!). I don't remember anything about or after the accident for a day, including my hospital visit. My friend thought I was a goner because I apparently asked him "What happened?" about 5000 times on the ride to the hospital. 2 weeks later I suddenly realized I hadn't been operating on all cylinders for those 2 weeks, which was slightly disturbing because I am a medical professional and was working for those 2 weeks... Anyways I highly recommend not doing anything too important in the short term.

 

[mandasol]

I've had 3 concussions in my lifetime, the last one being the worst (ski jumping crash, and I was wearing a helmet!). I don't remember anything about or after the accident for a day, including my hospital visit. My friend thought I was a goner because I apparently asked him "What happened?" about 5000 times on the ride to the hospital. 2 weeks later I suddenly realized I hadn't been operating on all cylinders for those 2 weeks, which was slightly disturbing because I am a medical professional and was working for those 2 weeks... Anyways I highly recommend not doing anything too important in the short term.

Something's telling me I'm not firing on all cylinders as well. After lunch I was starting to feel a little light headed, my right ear hurt a little, and I'm feel pressure on the right side of my head again. I have a follow up appt with my doctor on friday, but may go in earlier if these symptoms persist.

Also, this is a little odd, I just went to the toilet and saw that I have my boxers on backwards -- I think that's the first time I've done that since I was like six years old or something.

 

[kcdoc]

You have gotten some good advice. STAY off the bike, and for that matter any activity that places you at risk for hitting your head, while you are having symptoms. Once symptom free you can return to activity, but only if you remain symptom free while doing that activity. If you note return of your symptoms, stop doing what you are doing and wait a few more days. Symptoms can be headache, dizziness, nausea, clouded thinking, stomach upset, imbalance, poor sleeping, memory difficulties, visual disturbance.
You want to avoid hitting your head, or even getting a whiplash like injury, while you are still symptomatic. That can lead to second impact syndrome, which is often fatal. Not to be an alarmist here, just dont want to see you get hurt again. I work in the field of brain injury, and it aint pretty in many cases.....

 

[lyleseven]

Wow! This is not to be taken lightly...

Any head injury with lingering symptoms is serious....very serious. You need to see a neurologist and one that has experience with traumatic brain injury (tbi). This can cause long term effects...don't mean to scare you...but until symptoms have completely subsided, do not risk further head injury. I have had clients and friends with tbi and some of them have permanent impairments. You need to get a thorough follow up. A negative CT scan is common even in tbi cases as CT scans can't measure this type of harm. A high powered scan called a Tesla 3 can actually pick up damage evidence of tbi. Petscans can also do this. Hope all of this is unnecessary with improvement but do not ignore any lingering symptoms.

 

[fmbp]

Given that you are experiencing some degree of cognitive dysfunction in addition to pain as much as a few days post injury, I would be very cautious. Monitor the pain closely, and if you begin to experience it in greater degrees, or if you begin to experience other neurological symptoms such as difficulties with your gait, vision, sensation, hearing, etc, I would get yourself to the ER quickly, and request a CT.

As mentioned by a previous poster, some types of head injury do not show up on initial CT, but may be more visible at a later time. More specifically, if your crash initiated a small bleed in one of the vessels that lie in the layers of tissue between your skull and brain, this bleed may not have been detected in the initial CT. Follow-up CT may be more sensitive as larger amounts of blood may have accumulated by this time. This continued accumulation of blood can ultimately cause compression of the brain which can then result in headaches or ultimately, unconsciousness and death. Not something to take lightly.

As stated by a previous poster, it's also true that CT scans are unable to detect all types of brain injury. Commonly within TBI, an individual is likely to experience white matter shearing (which is simply fancy neurology/neuropsychology speak for tearing of the cells that connect some brain regions to others). This poster was correct in stating that a 3 Tesla MRI would be more likely to be able to detect this type of injury, but even with this detection, not terribly much is known about the precise consequences of such an injury. It isn't true though that MRI would be more sensitive to detecting any accumulation of blood on the brain.

Suffice it to say that you may experience difficulties with focusing and maintaining your attention for some time period, and you may have some degree of memory difficulty for a little while. Ultimately, however, the research on mild TBI shows that there is usually very little noticable deficit in the long term.

Good luck, and keep close tabs on the pain and any other symptoms that you may experience. If you are very cautious, you will just suck it up and head on over to the ER. I'm of the opinion that with your brain, it is far better to be safe than sorry.

 

[mandasol]

Update

Update:

It's been a little over two weeks since my crash. My scars have all healed and my head is feeling back to normal. I had a follow up with my regular physician, and everything checks out fine. He left it up to me whether I wanted a referal to see a neurologist or not. Since I feel better now, and he doesn't see any problems I decided I was fine.

Thanks for everyone's advice. During that time I stayed off the bike and got a lot of rest, which I think contributed to the fairly quick full recovery.

Also, thanks to some other advice I got from this post I found out about the Bell helmet crash replacement policy. Bell Sports totally rocks! They shipped me a brand new replacement Sweep R helmet for only $35 total, and even before I was ready to get back on my bike.

Now I only need to convince my wife that riding my bike is safe, and I crashed only because of my own stupidity -- which she seems to think I have a lot of.

 

[California L33]

Update:

It's been a little over two weeks since my crash. My scars have all healed and my head is feeling back to normal. I had a follow up with my regular physician, and everything checks out fine. He left it up to me whether I wanted a referal to see a neurologist or not. Since I feel better now, and he doesn't see any problems I decided I was fine.

Thanks for everyone's advice. During that time I stayed off the bike and got a lot of rest, which I think contributed to the fairly quick full recovery.

Also, thanks to some other advice I got from this post I found out about the Bell helmet crash replacement policy. Bell Sports totally rocks! They shipped me a brand new replacement Sweep R helmet for only $35 total, and even before I was ready to get back on my bike.

Now I only need to convince my wife that riding my bike is safe, and I crashed only because of my own stupidity -- which she seems to think I have a lot of.

Glad you're recovered. "Gee, Honey, I was dumb before, but I'll be smarter next time," doesn't sound like a great way to get back on the bike

 

[venus]

Drooling - Don't Need No CT

Dude, w/ the dizziness, nausea & other symptoms you clearly had a concussion & some swelling & or bleeding inside your skull. Don’t press your luck & exercise to increase blood pressure especially head down on a road bike & risk becoming a veg. You don't need a CT to tell you this It ain’t worth it to be a tough guy & have your mom wiping saliva from your chin the rest of her (your) life.

 

[Forrest Root]

Dude, w/ the dizziness, nausea & other symptoms you clearly had a concussion & some swelling & or bleeding inside your skull. Don’t press your luck & exercise to increase blood pressure especially head down on a road bike & risk becoming a veg. You don't need a CT to tell you this It ain’t worth it to be a tough guy & have your mom wiping saliva from your chin the rest of her (your) life.

That's a bit dramatic, don't you think? He said his CT came back negative. Sure he could have had a small leaker, but considering that his symptoms resolved, it's been a few weeks, and he feels back to normal, there's nothing that would indicate he's not at risk for some sort of CVA. I'll take a risk and say that both the attending ER doc and any consulting hospital docs, as well as his primary care doc, got a complete history. Now, if there was something in the history that indicated he was at risk for some vascular or arterial "incident," I'll bet they would have warned him as much and referred him to a specialist.

Christ, I had a climbing accident which resulted in a basilar skull fracture, a comminuted orbital fracture, and a sweet bleed inside my brain that filled that left me all out of sorts. Complicating all of that was IDDM. At no time did the hospital attending, the neurologist, the neurosurgeon, or any other specialist say that I was at risk if I put my head down.

I think it's a bit over anxious to question, via internet forum, the docs that have actually seen the patient, seen his xrays and test results, and know his history. I'm pretty sure there's a reason docs don't dx and tx patients via internet forums.

 

[venus]

That's a bit dramatic, don't you think?

Not really. I've fallen on my head lot of times but never had delayed ill effects. Docs in the ED often over look the obvious as the patient looks good. Attended lots of M&Ms on case reports where stuff was missed because the patient seamed normal upon basic exam. CTs only show current state. Bleeding can be evident only w/ time for subtle injuries. If dizziness & nausea is present, letting a patient go is risky.

 

[Forrest Root]

Not really. I've fallen on my head lot of times but never had delayed ill effects. Docs in the ED often over look the obvious as the patient looks good. Attended lots of M&Ms on case reports where stuff was missed because the patient seamed normal upon basic exam. CTs only show current state. Bleeding can be evident only w/ time for subtle injuries. If dizziness & nausea is present, letting a patient go is risky.

Well, he has no symptoms, Doc PA. You seemed to have missed that part.

 

[Ophidian]

My last one I was off my bike for a week. I've had 7 concussions over 13 years of racing BMX. The last being in 1998. Only lost memory on 3 of them. The worst was in 1992 when I didn't even remember waking up. I remember going to bed the night before the race and next thing I remember I'm in the hospital not knowing what city I was in. Looking back it was kind of funny since it happened in my hometown. Things were different back then I crash on Sunday got out if the hospital on Tuesday and went racing that night. I know very stupid of me. All the doctor said was take a couple of days of the bike and I thought whats the worst that could happen. I had a CT done 2 years ago and it looks like no long term damaged so far. Just to be on the safe side I only ride road bikes now. No more 4x races for me. I would recommend regular follow ups. I switch doctors about 8 years ago and he's still following me about it to make sure I have no long term damage.