I had a really serious concussion about 5.5 years ago. I was kicked in the skull by my horse and then fough falling in the mud and had a second impact from whiplash (probably more serious for my brain). I never lost consciousness but the ER doctor misdiagnosed it and sent me to work the next day with directions to follow up with my primary care in a week. His office staff wasn’t overly concerned either since ER said I was fine. After 5 days, I couldn’t form sentences and by my follow up appointment, I could barely talk. All scans had been clean.
The initial 24-48 hours is critical, but symptoms can take a week to surface. Thankfully after showing up at work that first day, my boss decided she’d rather I not work (my face was black and blue and I was in a crazy amount of pain) so I wasn’t stressing my brain too much. But, I ended up out of work for a couple weeks, dealt with post concussive syndrome from a good year plus, and still lose words when stressed and tired. I’m sure my migraines are worse from concussions. I had another concussion 2 years ago and had no symptoms other than anxiety, frustration, and increased debilitating headaches which started 10 days after the fall. For this concussion, I never hit my head, but experienced whiplash. It was my doctor that finally put 2 and 2 together as I had mentioned the fall the day after it happened. A month later, concussion was diagnosed and we adjusted my work schedule to give my brain a rest and it helped some.
Anyway, this is all to say symptoms show up at different times. I’m terrified that if you’re clear after 24-48 hours, you can be released to play. Most of my symptoms haven’t even started by that point. Concussions are scary, scary things. My short term memory comes and goes sometimes and it stresses me out so much. It’s all related to concussions. At 33, I’m too young to otherwise have memory loss.
