Post Traumatic Concussion

[denver24422]

My son is a teacher (27 years) old...who has been suffering from Post Traumatic Concussion for more than 3 months.  He has returned to teaching in November, but still suffers daily from headaches, sometimes dizziness, and certainly drained & tired by the end of the day.  We have paid for absolute full medical testing to be sure there are no other underlying causes, and so far, nothing has come up.  He also had a CTScan which also came up OK.  However, about 8 days ago he developed an unvoluntary head "jerking".  His head literally gets pulled backwards and he has no control over the movement.  It has him extremely concerned, and there is nothing in anything we have read that relates this to a symptom of the concussion.  Is this normal???  Should we be concerned??  What type of medical help (if any) should we seek?  Thank you in advance for any information you can provide!!!

[Joyce K Lee, MD]

Dear Post Traumatic Concussion

Thank you for submitting your question.
I will answer your concerns to the best of my abilities, but please be informed that I am unable to offer a diagnosis based on your history and list of symptoms.
I am limited in not having the opportunity to perform a full neurologic examination on your son, nor am I able to review the pertinent imaging.
This is solely for educational purposes and should in no way be a substitute for a formal evaluation by a certified physician.

Post-concussive syndrome may involve a number of signs and symptoms including but not limited to headache, dizziness, fatigue, and memory difficulties. The "involuntary head jerking" your son has experienced may be related to cervical muscle (neck) spasm from the injury. This may be from a "whiplash" type injury (assuming any imaging of your son's neck were negative after the initial injury twp years ago). Several treatments exist for cervical muscle spasm - including muscle relaxant medications such as Valium and Flexeril and various types of physical therapy- which may be effective at reducing or even eliminating cervical muscle spasm. I would recommend follow up with your primary physician or neurologist to have your son evaluated for this ongoing problem.

Best of luck.

JKL, MD

[ljyh]

my son had similar head jerking after concussion 2 years ago. He also had another concussion recently w/ constant head pain. We tried chiro,PT(exercise+stretching), meds and he got worse. missed 1xmonth of school.  I found a PT who combines cranial-sacral/soft tissue and other standard PT regimens(she had training for concussion injuries) and he improved w/ each visit. Now completely symptom free(balance/strength/headaches/dizziness)-most of his symptoms were due to neck injury(whiplash occurring w/concussion)-((search whiplash injury and headaches(C2,C3 cervical spine injury) )) I'm sure your son's  neck is tight or has restricted range of motion. Find the right PT and he will likely improve quickly-L