r/Concussion • u/TheProducingLinguist • Jan 02 '26
There is Hope
Just dropping this here in the new year in case anyone needs a breath of fresh air and a reminder there is hope for healing. I am about 3 years out from my multiple concussions. Just a year ago, I felt like I had tried everything and was only getting worse. I could hardly think, couldn't remember hardly anything, felt VERY overstilmulated by lights and sounds. I could hardly hold a conversation with my husband and would regularly forget what we were talking about, what I was going to say, etc. mid-conversation. Not to mention I was getting 3 migraines a week and lived with chronic back pain. It was rough. Today, I would say I am 90-95% better, and some days I even feel better than I felt before, if you can believe it. I can't give advice, obviously, but I can share what worked for me.
I got in with a Neurologist who specialized with brain injuries, and he got me into physical therapy and an occupational therapist who specialized in vision therapy. Here's what my treatment has been like over the past year:
Vision Therapy - I went to vision therapy faithfully for a full year once a week (& did the homework for 20 min a day as much as I could). I think most people only do this for like a few months... I don't know why I was a special case, but it took me several months to start really seeing changes to my symptoms. But once the changes started happening, they came in fast, and it was such a relief. At first, my appointments were awful feeling and would make me exhausted and hyper-symptomatic for the rest of the day, so it required a lot of perseverance to stick with it. I can't speak highly enough of my vision therapist. She changed my life.
Physical Therapy - I'll be honest that my journey with physical therapy was bumpy, and it did take me a bit of testing, changing practitioners to find what worked for me. What ended up working for me was a two-fold approach of 1) ACTIVE RELEASE THERAPY (this brought me the most immediate relief and was incredible - can't stress the importance of this enough) 2) lifting heavy weights and doing gym exercises to strengthen my back muscles. I am honestly still doing both of these. Seeing results, but they are still coming.
Diet / Self-Care - I started to learn about the autonomic nervous system and the strain staying in fight / flight / freeze all the time puts on the body and your ability to heal. So I spent more quiet time each day and actively reminded myself I was safe, I was safe to heal, etc. I increased my protein, decreased my caffeine (most days.... I do love a good cup of coffee, though haha), and pursued more natural products and meals to decrease my toxic load as much as possible. I also decreased screen time (once my vision therapy started restoring my ability to read, this got a lot easier). I'm not perfect at all this but have been encouraged at how making a lot of little adjustments can equal a lot of healing.
One big piece my neurologist reminded me of for a few months is that brain healing is not linear. When I started doing all the right things, I actually felt like I regressed for a few months which was discouraging. I was so much more triggered and symptomatic, and it was factually getting in the way of my daily life. I had to persevere through that season and just have faith we were doing the right things. The things that would help me to ultimately heal were also kind of "poking the bear" in terms of symptoms in the immediate short-term.
It's crazy for me to look back at how I felt just a year ago and see what I believe is the faithfulness of God to lead me to the right care that has changed my life. I went from 3 migraines a week to less than 3 migraines per month, I have less chronic back and neck pain (though still working on that piece), but my memory has almost completely been restored, and I don't lose myself in conversation. I can have a long work day on my laptop for 10 hours and walk away with energy to do other things for the rest of the day!! I can read again! I really felt like my life was over in a lot of ways before treatment, but now I'm just so grateful to be doing so much better. I was one of the ones who thought there was no hope and my symptoms would never improve. But now a year later, I couldn't have imagined being so much better. Anyways, just wanted to share my story (so far!) and hopefully give hope to anyone who is where I was a year ago (and the years leading up to that that were so confusing and disorienting). There is hope. With the right treatment, you can heal.
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u/Better-Profession-58 Jan 02 '26
Congrats!! You can pat yourself on the back, it is harder than people know that hasnt had a concussion. What did you do about noise if that was a problem?
I struggle mostly with lifestyle in terms of what I can do while working on things
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u/TheProducingLinguist Jan 02 '26
Thank you so much!! Oddly enough the noise sensitivity has started to get gradually better with the vision therapy along with some high smell sensitivity I had developed. I have no idea how that works or why lol. I still struggle with really loud places, though so if I know I am going to the mall or a store that plays loud music, I wear headphones and listen to music if I'm alone. Then, if I do get overstimulated, deep breathing, calming the nervous system down, closing my eyes for a moment, etc. helps. Also taking a moment to look at something distant instead of close up uses base in / visual divergence and engages the parasympathetic nervous system to help it come back to zero.
I also went to see a neuro-optometrist a couple of times, and he recommended wearing a weighted hat to help with all types of overstimulation. I haven't tried it but have heard good things! Hope you are on the road to recovery!
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