If you or someone you love has suffered a concussion in the past three years, you may not realize that some of your daily health complaints are connected to your injury.
Most people won’t connect the dots; they won’t recognize the link between their concussion and their headaches, blurry vision, and dizziness. However, a traumatic brain injury can affect many different parts of the brain. Problems related to your concussion can manifest in a variety of ways and can last for a long time after the initial injury.
If these problems don’t disappear after a weeks or months, then it is likely that you are suffering from post-concussion syndrome (PCS). In this blog, we’ll discuss five common problems that could be caused by your concussion.
Please leave a comment below if you have any questions!
Headaches
People suffer from all kinds of headaches: tension headaches, pressure headaches, and headaches from fatigue or stress. But if you have experienced a head injury or concussion in the past three years, you might be suffering from a symptom of PCS — particularly if you’re having piercing headaches that worsen with specific neck movements.
If these headaches are recurring and seem to have no other cause, it’s important to figure out whether they are caused by your concussion, in order to seek the appropriate form of treatment.
Blurry Vision
Blurry vision can be caused by a number of conditions, ranging from macular degeneration, glaucoma, and astigmatism. But if you have experienced a concussion, one of the reasons you are experiencing blurry vision might be a loss of gaze fixation — in other words, you have lost your ability to focus your gaze on a single thing or location for very long.
A concussion or traumatic brain injury could be the root of cause of this blurry vision, resulting in spontaneous eye movements or overcompensation when trying to follow a moving object. Dr. Jay at Northoak Chiropractic Neurology uses exercises which can help train your brain to improve gaze stability and return your vision to normal.
Dizziness
When you feel dizzy, it is often caused by a disconnect between your visual perception and your body’s sensual experience of where you are. After concussions, it is common to experience dizziness for a short period of time. However, this will typically resolve itself within a few months.
Some people will continue to experience dizziness, even as much as three years after the concussion event, as a result of their injuries. In these cases, we recommend a course of treatment that aims to improve the efficiency of neural pathways and treat affected areas of the brain.
Light or Sound Sensitivity
Exposure to certain types of lights or constant visual stimulation, in the form of watching television or using a computer, can trigger head pain for many people with PCS. Likewise, certain sounds may trigger a fight-or-flight response, following a concussion or brain injury incident.
Both of these situations can result in anxiety and stress, which can make it hard to go about your daily life. At Northoak Chiropractic Neurology, we suggest strategies that help you reduce these stressors, give you coping tools when you are exposed to them, and offer treatments that address the root causes of light and sound sensitivities.
Nausea
Like dizziness, people with post-concussion syndrome often experience nausea as an indirect result of their concussion. PCS patients will often experience nausea in conjunction with the other conditions listed above.
This list of problems is not comprehensive. If you want further details and a more technical description of the link between post-concussion syndrome and possible symptoms, we recommend reading our blog on the 7 Most Common PCS Symptoms.
If you or someone you love has experienced a concussion or brain injury, and they are experiencing any of these problems, make an appointment today with the Northoak Chiropractic team or call us at (905) 338-5951.
