Headaches After Head Injuries — Post-Traumatic Headaches

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At age 42 I was hit in the head from a professional soccer coach accidentally. My life has been 30 months of pure hell. To any of you going to see Neurologists ? stop !! they are completely useless and fail to understand or believe what you are suffering. I have tried all the prescriptions, followed all the doctors have told me and found myself feeling worse than when this originally happened. My faith in Western medicine is lower than that ant you just stepped on. The little bits of progress I have received come from accupuncture and maybe a little bit of massage. Trying Reikii tomorrow as I have nowhere else to turn. I have a headache 24 hours a day all the time !! Never had a headache in my life before this accident, and fail to understand why this occured.
Hello I am glad to found this info. However I surely struggele to read it after my injury 8months ago. I was electricuted while welding. I have been litely shocked before but nothing like this. Symptoms have persisted and I have been diagnosed with a panic disorder. My belief is that the Panic came on due the memoery loss, fatigue,etc.... on and on and on. I live alone and am struggling to maintain now that I am home from trearment for the Panic Disorder. i definitely will refer to this more. Thankyou.
Our family has also been suffering thru the rigamoro post TBI. We are 8 years out and our 17 yr. old son is finally getting a little relief with oxygen therapy. We have been thru the gambit of drugs, side effects from all the drugs and being sent from doctor to doctor. He is now being seen at a university headache clinic, which is also checking his pituitary gland for deficits in its function, as well as treating him with oxygen therapy. Please don't give up, but utilize all the services and expertise you can find to help make life manageable for yourself or loved-one. We are not out of the water by any stretch of the imagination, but at least we are now able to tread water and hopefully float someday.
Thank you so much for this information, I finally feel as if I could be on the road to recovery. 15 months ago I fell from my horse, having post concussion and getting referred to the Head injury clinic. Although I was at this specialist clinic, I was NEVER inspected by a nureologist. Their tests and examinations were only making my symtoms worse (nausia, vision, speech, concerntration, moods, memory and of coarse the intense headaches) so I was discharged and told me I\'d come right. I then started Uni, only for all my symtoms to get worse, I was in bed for days on end while trying to study. The hardest part was no one could understand what was wrong with me because what we all suffer from is something you can not see. I find this the most frustrating thing because only the suffer really knows how much pain and suffering they go through. I decided to see a new doctor who was amazing, he still didn\'t quite understand but was committed to help make my life a little brighter. Medication was the only thing he could do, even though the antidepressent drugs hide the problem, I was still very grateful that someone finally wanted and could help me. Then 2 months ago I suffered a collapse, causing all my symtoms to increase even more than before. My mum was so worried she sent me straight to the doctor, only to be turned away with more medication and told to just keep pushing on, you\'ll come round. My mother was furious and demanded a MRI scan, which was eventually done, to only find it was clear. I was relieved that nothing major was wrong, but also heart broken that I had no more answers and felt more alone than ever. I could not understand that no one could tell me why I was in so much pain all day every day. Its been a hard long road these past 15 months, but with this information it has given me some guidance with my illness. Please, if anyone out there is feeling the same way, you\'re not alone. I have got very depressive and not seeing whats the point in being on this earth when you are in so much pain and misery. Remember, you\'re not alone :) xx
I can relate to almost every post I read from other posters. I had a head injury when I was 19; that was 6 years ago already. LONG JOURNEY! let me tell ya. Still going… How does one get healing when all of the doctors are MORONS!? I was apparently jumped & mugged one night. I say apparently because I still to this day have no recollection of any time around than. $40 is what they got from me and left me for dead. Concussion, internal bleeding & bruising, fractured skull. Unfortunately it took 6 hours before I arrived to a hospital. 8 Hours to gain consciousness. Doctors wanted to cut my skull open to relieve pressure, blood ect. My mother got a 2nd opinion from another doctor, who said try not to do it, more long term issues. Same went for drilling a hole in skull. Thankfully they did not do it. I think I was shipped out within 24 hours of arrival. Sent home. Sleep it off I guess… Got some MRI's, CT scans. Doctors all basically say could be both ends of spectrum on recovery & long term issues/disabilities. Why do you get the dam scans if they cant tell anything? Zap us with more radiation & free $ probably??? Doctors after doctors. All say the same thing, "6 months to recover" for post head injury. Chronic headaches till this day. Anxiety, depression, poor concentration, lack of any motivation, and for the past year, "what’s the point of living" thoughts; probably because not able to progress in life, and Social security is hard for many disabled people. Catch 22. My aftermath disabilities: Anxiety, Depression, Dyslexia, Chronic Headaches/Migraines, Lack of Concentration(ADD/HD), Lack of motivation, Speech Impairment, Frustration/Anger Issues with task, Loss of desire to eat, hard to get to sleep-once asleep I sleep for 12-24hrs+, Feelings of unconnectivity to this reality. Sad life. I think it would be easier if I hadnt been on a path for a very bright future in any avenue I chose. Better to have had than to never had is a lie. Stuck in this black hole for too long. I don’t see the way out any longer. //// I love this site. I have learned more in the last 10min than 6 years of doctors. WOW. Basically Have all the symptoms, so it is pretty clear what I have been suffering from & why now. Nice to have an answer to why I am suffering finally. Only resolution I can get from doctors is depr/anxiety pills, counseling... It's like they dont even see the causes, or past history, just a word, and each word has a drug to give patient. I believe my circumstances to the symptoms are different than the general population. None of that shit will every work or heal me or most others. Only mask the problems from my experience. Although I do think my issue is chemical imbalance or possibly damage which results in these symptoms. I could sustain more head damage and still be more intelligent than most of these doctors Ive seen. Most of them smart dumb people, book worms. Robots! Repeat after me…Basically for the past 3 years I sought medical marijuana and have not had chronic headaches, or migraines in 3 years. Besides the occasional stressed out headache. I have no luck with aspirin, vikidin, or migraine pills. Still been seeking better fixors for my other symptoms, but no luck still. I dont see the difference in substance consumption. Everything in this world including food is a drug/substance that our bodies process for benefit(s). I can say medical Mar. is not helping my anxiety or depression any. I am in a catch 22 because without it headaches again, I dont eat, & I cant get to sleep. I really want to resolve the anxiety & depression, & motivation issues. Big dreams, as always, but stuck in that black hole still, alone. When I look at all my issues/disabilities, my head spins. Overwhelming. If we were all puppets, I’d be missing a few strings. I just want to perform like everyone else again. Toss me a few strings please! Maybe I should just be happy I have any strings at all…
If you are suffering from daily headaches after suffering a concussion or head trauma, please check Dr. Ivica Ducic's (Georgetown University Hospital) website. My son is finally headache free after surgery to fix the nerve damage that occurred from the head injury.
my daughter was hit in the head during a soccer game. I was not at the game and nothing was said to me about how hard she was hit by her or my husband. 4 weeks later she was hit in the back of the head with a basketball during a game and seemed fine. She already had headaches prior to that but the headaches got worse. She was sick to her stomach feelinglike she was going to throw up so I took her into the doctor. they said she needed more acid reflux medication and it would go away. She was still palying basketball keeping up a full schedule at school until one day she could not deal with the pain anymore. I told her in again and they said she had a concussion. Stop palying sports for awhile and everything would be fine. It was not fine. She ended up being taken out of school and still not gone back. We took her to a specailist in a city 2 hours away. He gave her a test said she was processing very slow and that she had had at least 2 concussions. We are dealing with this day by day. She had a MRI and they found a bleed deep in her brain that had sealed itself off. This has been 2 months and some days I think she is fianlly on the road to recovery and then the next day she is worse. Noe she is getting the sharp stabbing pains on the right ide of her head, she is so tired all the time. It is heart breaking to watch and others who havve not gone through it just don't understand how hard it is to watch a 15 year old extremely smart and very athletic go through this.
this information was very helpful to me it seems to me when i fell and hit my head on two concrete steps and then the concrete ground when i was very little ive been having worsening headaches and ive been losing my memory and im only 16 ... i dont know if that accident had anything to do with my symptoms now but im certianly telling my doctor next time i see him maybe he could give me and MRI and see whats going on there .... because ive also been having like thies brain pops/spasms that wont go away .
Thank you very much for this information. I'm 71. Had my fourth concussion in Sept 2012. Have also had familial hemiplegic migraines since I was about 13 so I can't safely take Sumatriptan. I'm reading a book which relates some of the same info about why recovery takes time: Brain Lash: Maximize Your Recovery from Mild Brain Injury. It's hard having patience sometimes.
Thank you for this website. It is re-assuring being able to read about all the symptoms being relatively common. I am having a lot of them and reading that they are part of the normal process is comforting. I had a motorcycle accident 2 months ago. The head pain varies but some weeks like this one is pretty consistent. Thank you for the re-assuring website. I'm believing in the 6 month mark for everything being better.
I have a child who was injured at home by a fall. It has been a 3 1/2 year nightmare. Ranging from the hospital thinking it was a basic concussion and not doing much and releasing her. Told it could take up to a year for a concussion to hear. Kept taking her back to the ER because of debilitating daily level 10 headaches we were still told it could take up to a year to resolve. I took her to a neurologist 10 months into it and found she had a TBI. Thought we were on the right road now. Had a neuropsychology appt and they said that they didn't feel she had a TBI due to a negative MRI. So her care was barely existent because they were to base her care on this evaluation. I took her to another doctor out of state who spent nearly 5 hours with her and found the multitude of symptoms and problems that we had been feeling she had. He told us that she has a TBI, a skull fracture and whiplash which kept her with all of the symptoms we had been seeing. The out of state doctor got us connected with a team back in our state. They then proceeded to drop the ball yet again on her. It even included dropping the ball on a neuroendrocrine evaluation which hadabnormall results and them calling to tell us all was normal and fine and to come back in a year. It has been a total uphill battle and I think a LOT of things need to change. I think it needs to start right at the beginning at the hospital in respect to TBI. Better education and protocols need to be in place to help TBI survivors and family members. More education for the hospitals, doctorspsychologiststs etc. Also more communication needs to happemonistst their own teams. I can't even believe for a second that two physicians on the same team can differ so widely and stall a patients care. Our story is a LOT longer than this and more compliacted with a lot of problems and obstacles, tried to keep it short. Make sure you keep searching for answers, if it doesn't feel write go to another doctor, dig deep anywhere and everywhere for answers, do your own homework and arm yourself with knowledge. We have come a long way and she has made a lot of progress. This has been from researching and advocating for ourselves, exploring options, seeking out doctors with really good credentials and who specialize in the things we feel we need to address. We're still researching a lot of the symptoms but feel we are getting a lot closer to real answers on some of the issues that involve level 10 daily headaches, sleep problems, tachychardia and much more. I wish you all good luck and God speed with your healing and recoveries. Keep searching and NEVER EVER give up!
Cranial sacral therapy check it out! works well. Head and neck injuries are tied together. L'hermittes syndrome ( that electric shock feeling) happened to me after my concussion and neck injury just leaning forward in a seated position. I am still dealing with headaches 2 years post concussion. Various drugs just made my symptoms worse. Accupuncture and massage therapy with a Cranial Sacral Massage therapist made a huge difference in my balance, cognition and pain management. After a few sessions of Cranial sacral therapy I felt like I was starting to get back to being me again. He also taught me ways of easing the headaches without meds. The headaches are still there but I am able to keep the pain at a manageable level. write everything down. our memories suck.
My husband has been diagnosed with Post Concussion Syndrome stemming from a head injury in June. We have been working closely with neurologists, speach therapist, and physical therapist. It has now been almost 5 months and we see his symptoms worsening. His headaches are intensifying, along with the nausea, light sensitivity, and sound. He is experiencing a lightning bolt shock several times a day now in the area of the injury with intense headaches and pressure. The current answers seem to be increase the dosage, and start a pain management regimen. I'm concerned that something else is going on. If anyone could provide suggestions of things to look into we would greatly appreciate it.
Due to post traumatic head & neck injuries, I live with a complex range of symptoms of arthritis of the head neck jaw bones. Trigeminal nerve issues have only just been diagnosed after many years. The trigeminal nerve is being triggered by several factors which has made life challenging. There is so little info out there about trigeminal neuralgia yet. I have learned most of what I know through other patients, as the text books I have read don’t give a full spectrum of age cause & all the symptoms. So few Doctors have little or any knowledge & can be most dismissive with people in great pain. Brain injury is hard enough without being written off due to an overall ignorance of a multifaceted organ like the brain. Keep a very open mind GP’S & the right questions will then be found.
My son was in an automobile accident in 2008. He has a brain stem bleed and a slight stroke. He has a headache almost everday. The most severe are at the base of the neck. Nothing seems to help. Any suggestions?
My husband had a fall May 29, 2011. He went thru 4.5 months of a concussion. It was pretty severe, not damage as for the reports would say, and yes in time the headaches and such went away. The only "brain" damage that I can notice (thank heavens) is a slight loss of hearing, and not as much as hearing loss, but you have to actually look at him or yell or get his attention when talking to him. Hes not really bad, but if there are other noises going on, you have to speak up, or actually get him to look at you. After the concussion in time he got better, at first he couldnt be in loud busy places, but a year later he is fine. Untill yesterday am. He woke up with a severe headach (i call it his concussion headache) and it hasnt gone away. There was no "triggers" that we can see. NO hitting of the head, no places where there was loud music, and such. So now I am a bit scared as yes he is missing work, that these headache may keep coming back periodically over his life? Is this a normal occurance? Is it maybe a migrain? we dont know as we have never had this before, and he hates taking medication of any kind. Any words of wisdom is appreciated.
Thank you for sharing your story,my daughter suffered a sport related concussion while at school. The school of course tried to cover up the accident by lying, we eventually discovered the truth but it doesn\\\\\\\'t change the fact my daughter recieved a concussion, spent 5 days in the hospital in misery, as a result was diagnosed with a TBI and now 5 months later is still sufferring from post concussion syndrome. I felt crazy at times because it is hard to pinpoint all facts especially if you never experienced a TBI or known anyone who has gone through it. Its very frustrating for everyone involved. Its been a life changing event for not only my 10 year old daughter but our entire family. My daughter is currently seeing a speech pathologist, TBI specialist, Neurologist, neuro- spychologist, physical therapist, and we are trying to get her in to some therapeutic stuff as well. It wasn\\\\\\\'t without a battle though. I dont think people can\\\\\\\"t really understand and want to tell you how its \\\\\\\"supose\\\\\\\" to happen but nothing they told us has been accurate. She will recovery in 3-6 months...not true its been 5 and finally everyone realizes its worse than \\\\\\\"usual\\\\\\\". I have tried to be my daughters advocate but its difficult when you have no idea yourself how to handle the sittuation. I felt like I had to convince people too.. I finally told the dr.\\\\\\\'s you may have hundreds of patients but this is my one and only daughter and I know her better than anyone NOW listen to us!!!. Dont underestimate your point of view, fight for yourself!!
At 16, I was in the passenger seat when our VW was hit by a drunk driver who ran a stop sign. I did a header through the passenger window (even though I had a seat belt on) my thick wool hat probably saved my life. I received a severe side impact head/neck injury. I'd never had a headache before then. Since the injury (after which I'd received EEG's confirming brain damage and more recently MRI's that showed a small lesion on the right side of my brain). The specialist doctors who treated me at the time seemed to be trying to prove that I was a liar and making up all my symptoms. I suppose they were being paid by the insurance of the woman who hit me, and I imagine they assumed we would sue. We did not. But if you find yourself in similar situations please make sure the doctors who treat you are on your team. Frankly, considering how severely my life was impacted by this injury, no amount of money would have made up for the loss of a promising life of creativity and productivity. All my symptoms were as listed in this article along with a few more. In addition to vision disturbances, chronic migraine headaches, ringing in the ears, nausea, difficulty concentrating, difficulty doing certain types of thinking which I'd been skilled at previously, and reduced emotional resilience, I also suffer from balance disturbances, and occasional totally incapacitating vertigo. I had been quite an easy going happy teenager (I know that's hard to believe but true) previously. I had been a straight A student with excellent rapport with teachers and peers. It has now been 20+ years since the accident. I have had more than 50 short term jobs in my life. I haven't lost jobs due to behavioral problems, but rather because of the amount of sick days I required. I could not work on those migraine days, and at least 3 or 4 per month was enough to let me go, or suggest I find another field. I can't take exposure to hardly any strong smells or chemicals, nor can I even handle riding in a car over bumps. Recently those 3 or 4 per month have become 2-4 per week, so now I can no longer hold any job. In addition to arthritic bone growth in my neck, which cause more pressure on nerves in my cervical spine, MRI's also showed an old lesion in my brain. No preventatives, pain medications or any of the 'Triptans' taken at onset seem to help at all anymore. I am all but totally house-bound and bed-ridden. I've been coping with this for decades, but now feel like there is very little to keep me going. Despite all this I was rarely depressed until recently. For anyone else reading this, if you have a TBI, take it seriously immediately when it happens and don't let anyone, doctors or family, belittle you or make you feel like you are imagining your symptoms. Keep at it until you find someone (doctors and therapists) who will help you. No one took my injuries seriously, until it was far too late. Now at 45 there is nothing anyone can do, even the wonderful specialists at Mayo Clinic who finally took me seriously and at least validated that my symptoms were based on something real.
This information was very helpful and it definately educated me more on this condition, which my daughter is suffering from at age 15. Thanks

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