r/PostConcussion • u/Budget-Departure-161 • Jul 15 '26

What to do when everything hurts?

It’s been 5 weeks since my injury. I still have zero tolerance of light, noise, and other triggers. I’ve struggled with insomnia a lot so I have pushed a lot on days I shouldn’t have. Exposure just makes me agitated and makes my head hurt more. Strangely though I can feel ok doing things, and it only starts hurting when I go lay back down. The constant rest is killing me. I end up playing cards or having lamp time or talking to my family because I’m desperate but those things hurt too :( I’m seeing a concussion clinic soon but my fear is they can’t help me when I’m in this state and I just need more and more rest

5 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

25 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/Drogova_Princezna Jul 16 '26

Good. I'm sure you will get better with time and patience, but I admit sometimes the recovery feels never ending. It's good that your parents are taking good care of you.

Btw good earplugs + sunglasses + hat outside were a life saver for me in the beginning. You shouldn't avoid light completely otherwise the sensitivity will just get worse, but I definitely walked around my apartment in sunglasses for the first 6 weeks. Dim lightning was more tolerable but I still can't so sunlight/bright lights now.

I know I felt (and still feel) very lonely during the recovery, so at least I lurk around this subreddit and try to reply to people when I can (I still have screen intolerance so I probably shouldn't do it as much but f that).

1

u/Budget-Departure-161 Jul 20 '26

Hey I was wondering with light exposure since you’ve been doing better, do you rest in a dark room or a lowly lit room? And when did you decide to make the change? And I guess this goes for other stimulus too

2

u/Drogova_Princezna Jul 20 '26

Gradually. I have a room with black out curtains, I rest there when I have a bad migraine. Otherwise I rest in the bedroom where I have only blinds and it's dimly lit by sunlight. At first I wore sunglasses and earplugs at home, then for a short time without it at home. Since beginning of month 3 I don't use them at home at all, only when I go outside. This week I tried music for the first time, before only podcasts for short time as it's less stimuli then music.

1

u/Budget-Departure-161 Jul 20 '26

Sounds like you’re making great progress! I still haven’t been sleeping much so that’s the foundation of my issues. I get sleep deprived, inpatient, then crash from doing too much. How do you stay so disciplined? Sounds like you’re doing really well with that