A point to make about brain injury ...

[Robby_Johnson]

This link should tell you everything you need to know about post-acute brain injury treatment.

Medical treatment is only done as an adjunct to active therapy/specialized treatment, designed to help individuals regain/relearn skills.

Robby

You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.

[rockstar]

These stories are amazing- especially you Coreene!

I plan on starting up riding again a bit in about a month and need a new hat… would NEVER have bought an approved hat… but WILL now after having read this!!!

AND I’ve suffered six concussions in my life… and until I read this thread, I never really realized that some weird tendencies of mine make a lot of sense now (or, I suppose, I could still just be a retard ). Inability to walk a straight line sometimes, often feeling dizzy and lightheaded, blurred vision, occasionally reversing the first letters of two words that go together (ex, pole huncher), etc.

Would like to say how critical it is to wear a helmet for all sports/exercising involving wheels though too!!! Any time I’m in public on a nice day I’m shocked at the kids AND adults I see helmetless. It’s just about the stupidest thing you could do, I think. One of my concussions involved a bad, bad bike accident when I was 12… was 100% something that could have happened to anyone and I suffered a very severe concussion that allowed for me to have a nice little stay in the ICU. Cracked my bike helmet in half and was told by a handful of neurologists that I wouldn’t have had a shot in hell without that helmet.

<BLOCKQUOTE class=“ip-ubbcode-quote”><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by marianne:
There she heard her friend yelling and angry etc all the signs of a concussion. It made a strong impression on her. Her friend will be okay with an overnight stay and rest for a few days. But it could have been so much worse.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I know what that’s like… and it IS very scary for all parties involved! For two of my concussions I turned into a RAVING lunatic. Was at my father’s office (doctor’s office) for one of them, screaming at the top of my lungs about elephants (I was doing a report on them at the time) and demanding with a WHOLE lot of rage to see my parents (when they were both standing directly in front of me). I swung with such force at the EMT when they came to take me to the hospital that I knocked him out and they had to keep restraints on me for several hours. It was very scary for my parents and my best friend to see me so out of control and unable to recognize my surroundings, and it was very embarrassing for me later on, when I could remember nothing of my antics.

I think anyone who has been the victim of a head injury or anyone who is a loved one of a victim can very easily say that you’re an idiot if you don’t do everything possible to save yourself or friends from such trouble. After having read this all… I’ll def. be sporting the safest hat next time I get on a horse and I can’t believe I was so stupid before!!!

Vote November 5th!!!

[creseida]

Wow, Correene! I’m so glad you recovered!

I have some small experience with how you feel/felt, but certainly not on that scale.

Some of you may recall, back on August 14, 2001, I chronicled my unceremonious dismount from a Clyde-X gelding, and the resulting concussion I received. Had it not been for my approved CO helmet, I would not be here. Not just on this board, but in this mortal world. A Painful Reminder about Approved Helmets

Here we are, 14 months later, and I still am feeling the effects of that blow to my skull. I was never one to get headaches, and I still have them fairly regularly (2-3 per week) where before I’d get them 2-3 times a year. The one’s I’d get prior to August 14, 2001, were nuissance headaches; two Advil and they’d be forgotten. The ones I get now are migraines, and 4 Advil and sleep might reduce them, but it really sucks when I wake up the next a.m. and I’ve still got it.

I will also have periods of vertigo, although they pass quickly. I also get the sensation of being not completely within my body…hard to describe, but it is almost like I am peering over the top of the head of a marionette and working the arms and limbs from behind. These last 3-5 minutes and happen on average once per month. I pull over when they happen when I’m driving…and that scares me. It also happens when I’m riding, so I just stop and either walk around the ring for a few laps or just halt and wait it out.

My typing is still not what it was, with lots of transpositions and misspellings…both letters and numbers. I also have problems with recalling words and with losing track of what I was doing or forgetting where I put something.

I am also more emotional than I used to be. Hard to keep up the hard-a$$ b!t@# persona when harsh words directed my way can bring me close to tears. They never used to. It used to be FU, whatever when someone said something rude. This is the part I hate more than anything.

Yes, there are certain people on these boards who become mortally offended and nasty when someone suggest that they wise up and go approved. But they don’t realise that it is because they are part of this community, and we’d hate to read a post “Jingle Curb Chains for So-and-So” because they took a header off a horse and now are in the hospital, having someone wipe drool from their chin every 5 minutes and a tube feeding them, and another “eliminating” for them. It is not because we are Helmet Na#!'s as one poster so tastelessly phrases it , it is because we care.

~<>~ Remember, the Ark was built by a rank amateur; the Titanic was built by a team of experts~<>~