BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Great story, thanks for posting.

Good thing to keep in mind in general when you bang your head- just because you don't black out or have amnesia doesn't mean that you haven't suffered a concussion. That, and medical experts don't always catch injuries on the first pass. I wonder if an MRI can pick something like this up immediately following an accident.

I know after my wreck they gave me a zillion CT scans from head to toe, including some of just my head, some the day of the wreck and the day after, some with one kind of injected dye, some with another kind of dye, etc... and some of those were to look for head/brain injury and intracranial bleeding and determine whether I was at risk of seizures and so forth. I believe MRIs can also be used, but I think there are a variety of reasons (MRIs cost more, take longer, require you to have zero metal in your body, make some people really nervous, etc.) that make CT the first choice if they are bringing you into a trauma unit and trying to get a general sense of your condition as fast as possible (although some MRIs might have been nice in my case since all those CT scans meant I was pretty much a walking nuclear reactor for a while). As far as I know MRI is more likely to be used in further evaluation if they need finer detail.

That post has gone 404. I wonder if she got nervous about the amount of detail she revealed.

It was 404 when I first tried it, but at 2:15, it works now.

seems to be gone again. not listed in the indexes, either.

Working.

thanks for posting this.

Hmmm... I'm wondering if something similar may have happened to me a while ago when I wrecked going down a hill

I don't quite remember the time line, but at some point last semester I would get nauseous when focusing on objects close to my face (sculpting) and would get nauseous other times too when I never used to.

I think those symptoms have sense subsided

I got a concussion in a winter sports accident when I was 12. I did black out, was out a while, and the afternoon was fuzzy. I ended up in the hospital. In 1971, it was a treat-and-release proposition, prescription for pain killers, check back with the doctor in two weeks, you-look-OK-kid-you'll-be-fine.

The main thing it did for me was kill the piano lessons. Just couldn't concentrate or practice. But I also got my first eyeglasses within a month or so of that. I don't know if I needed them before, but I sure did afterward.

I've beaned myself hard enough to almost black out twice, both on low ceilings on staircases (at incredibly irresponsible running/jumping speeds/forces). The first time I had a bit of a breakdown and was emotional (but attributed it to leaving for the Peace Corps in 4 hours - still not sure that wasn't it), the second time I don't remember much about the afternoon (less memorable day). I wonder what the actual damage was (never sought treatment in either case, because I didn't actually black out... and I was in too big a hurry to do things properly, hence the beaning in the first place).

That was a seriously eye opening post. I'm nowhere near as hardcore as that cyclist in any aspect of life, but my reaction to those kinds of symptoms would likely have been the same. Except that now I know better... and for good measure I'll get my husband to read it too.

Thank you for sharing!

It all furthers my suspicion that my last words will be "No, I'm OK. Really."

I also had a sustained blackout when I was 13 (got picked up off the side of the road by an ambulance, unconscious; this is when I started wearing a helmet) and I never did any of these tests

But that could have very well had to do with as much as my parent and my own lack of knowledge as it did with a lack of need