WHIPLASH UPDATE
Sup gentlemen,
My dad was telling me recently that back in the 60s he got rear-ended and received whiplash. The result for him was 2 years of headaches. I looked up the symptoms of whiplash and they are more or less consistent with symptoms of PCS. For more serious instances of whiplash, symptoms can persist for 5-7 years or even a lifetime.
Now, even though I have PCS from very light sparring and not heavy hits, I did for a split-second think that maybe I had whiplash from the blows I received when I first read about it.
It's not outside the realm of possibility given how similar the symptoms for whiplash and PCS are and the longevity of both. And certainly, one can imagine that any whiplash type injury can probably cause concussion as well. Food for thought and something to keep in mind. Here are the two articles I've read on the matter:
https://www.hcalawyers.com.au/blog/the-long-term-effects-of-whiplash-after-a-car-accident/
http://www.healthline.com/health/whiplash#symptoms3
Isn't whiplash just your brain violently jolting in your skull anyway. And accompanied with neck pain
Yeah, I think it can be, but not in all instances. In any case, one might be able to apply research and findings about whiplash to their PCS rehab given how similar they seem to be. And there is undoubtedly more info on whiplash than there is on PCS.
I've recently discovered that my back--and consequently neck and muscles of the skull, since they all connect together--have been extremely tight and full of knots. I discovered this by injuring my back while stretching, over a year ago, and then seeking help in March 2018 (diagnosed with tightness and knots by a doctor and PTs). In March, I started professional back rehab which included stretching, strength training, massage, foam rolling, lacrosse ball rolling, and just had a trigger point injection therapy session with my doc today. My back was TIGHT (particularly in what feels like my thoracic extensors), even after rehab. Regardless of my 12 weeks of therapy, my back muscles were spasming throughout today's entire triggerpoint injection process--to repeat, I was TIGHT, and probably still am to some extent. I was injected around 15-20 times in various spots of my mid and upper back, including my traps. My doc told me that she had never seen such intensity of spasm in her 10+ years of injections.
I don't know what the cause of the initial tightness was--probably years of sitting with bad posture, inflexibility in general, stress, plus the time I had to take off which weakened me overall due to my injured knees (~5 months off exercise initially*). I bring up this tightness in my back--pre-PCS--because of the possible connection between what I thought was a concussion injury and PCS, and what really could have been an injury due to tightness and weakness in my back, neck, and skull, and its symptoms, AKA whiplash.
I was physically out of shape, with muscles emaciated from the ~5 months off, when I sustained my "concussion" (injured my knees in May 2015, did not work out at all in the intervening time until my fateful sparring session in September 2015.) According to
this article, upon cessation of exercise, it can take anywhere from 6-31 weeks for muscular strength and size to atrophy for recreational athletes and 2-4 weeks for competitive athletes. As a person that was working out intensely every day, whilst being on a caloric deficit at the time of my knee injury, I probably fell into the latter category.
From May-September (my intervening time off) was ~21 weeks. That's weeks upon weeks of potential atrophy. Could it be that the tendons and musculature in my skull, neck, and back, being weak and inflexible due to the aforementioned time off, received
whiplash due to that very weakness and inflexibility, during my light sparring session* in September? Could it be that my back's musculature was in constant spasm, for years afterward, with symptoms like:
- Headaches
- Concentration and memory problems
- Ear issues (weird, variable levels in sound, specifically)
- Vision issues (sensitivity to bright light, specifically)
- Irritability
because of what may have been whiplash? Could my back's musculature have relaxed over time, albeit slowly, eventually mitigating the symptoms? It certainly sounds plausible, considering that I am now virtually symptom free (~2.5 years later) for no firmly established reason. These symptoms more or less line up with symptoms of whiplash. PCS is not clearly understood and whiplash sounds like a viable cause to me.
I've found a blog that I've cursorily reviewed which addresses whiplash in PCS and seems to corroborate my thoughts. I hope my post and the website below are of use to someone:
http://www.theinvisibleinjury.net/about-me/
http://www.theinvisibleinjury.net/b...ercise-into-my-life-two-years-post-concussion
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*I would later suffer from PCS and my back injury, which put me out another 2 years altogether, which served to tighten my back even more.
*According to the posted
whiplash article: "A
1998 study on whiplash showed that injuries can be sustained at low speeds, even as slow as 8 km per hour," which means that my light sparring could certainly fall into the "impact speeds that can cause whiplash" category.
