u/Few_Blackberry_1960

Post concussion symptom flare seems to cause Adrenaline-like surges that are still waking me up in the early morning (4:30AM) and hitting randomly throughout the day with a panicky, vibrating feeling, shallow breathing, slight nausea, and pounding pulse (but HR is only slightly elevated) then complete energy crash. These episodes can be made worse by heavy visual stimulus, like driving or screen scrolling. Anyone have experience with a sympathetic system suppressant like Guanfacine?

What PT or exercises do you all use to address a feeling of ear fullness or feeling of inner ear being clogged. I am constantly trying to “pop” my ears and feel fullness like a head cold. The feeling gets worse when I have overdone it visually or other stressors

My post-concussion syndrome flare-up seems to have triggered a dysautonomia reaction that I haven’t seen referenced much here. One of my worst symptoms right now is routinely waking up around 4:00 to 5:00 AM with what feels like a massive cortisol or adrenaline dump. It isn't posture-related, but seems driven by my hormone levels or circadian rhythm.

When it hits, I wake up with nausea, a slight spinning feeling, shallow breathing, sudden panic, dry mouth, heavy noodle limbs, reflux, and a heart rate that jumps from my normal resting baseline of 64–70 BPM up to 80–95 BPM. This same feeling can also pop up at random times during the day. And it makes for a real crappy day because it exasperates my neurological head symptoms.

I’ve been doing daily 1.25-mile walks to try to break my PCS cycle, but my body's response is totally erratic. On decent days, my HR reaches 100–110 while walking and quickly drops back into the 70s once I rest. But if I’m having one of these autonomic glitches, my HR spikes higher (110–125) and then refuses to drop back down—it stays stuck in the 85–95 range for hours after I finish. And I feel like absolute crud.

What the heck is going on here? Has anyone experienced something similar, or found good ways to quiet down these autonomic surges? Lastly, has anyone seen an endocrinologist, autonomic neurologist, or another specialist who actually understands dysautonomia caused by PCS?

Does anyone get close to feeing back to normal, only to crash back into the abyss of symptoms (like within the same day)? I usually feel a bit better in the late afternoon and evening. Some days I’ve even felt about 70% back to my pre PCS-flare normal. Those nights I often think “I’ll get a good sleep and I’ll be back to normal tomorrow morning”.

Inevitably, however, I’ll wake around 4:30-5 AM with a horrible fight or flight feeling and as I get ready in the morning symptoms start to flare up again. I think certain visual stimuli, like driving. Some eye movements, and certain screen activities, cause symptoms to worsen but often late afternoon in the office I’m doing OK on the computer.

Are most of you all stuck in a pretty narrow range of symptoms, or does how you feel fluctuate radically? I can literally go from feeling like I just want to be put out of my mystery - to wow, I’m almost back to my usual self. At least the times when I feel better give me hope that I’m not permanently stuck in a dystopian brain fog of nausea, panic, headaches and clogged ear feeling.

I’m about 8 weeks into a PCS flare-up. One of my worst symptoms is near nightly (3-5 AM) waking up with racing heart, anxiety, some dizziness, and crawling electric sensation in upper spine. It’s like either a histamine dump or adrenaline dump that makes all my other PCS symptoms feel worse. And it also happens randomly throughout the day.
I’ve been looking into supplements for neuro inflammation and possible mast cell calming- in case it is a histamine dump issue. Thoughts or experiences from anyone?

I’m 5 weeks into a PCS flare up. I can deal with the headache, brain fog and tunnel-ish vision. What is extremely challenging to handle are the episode of pre-syncope, where I feel like I’m going to pass-out or lose consciousness. I’ve had several instances at work when I’m just white-knuckling a meeting or presentation and praying to feel better and not black-out. The sensation doesn’t seem to come with any drop in blood pressure but I do get an elevated heart rate and an insane panic feeling. Does anyone else deal with severe pre-syncope? How do you handle?

I’m entering week 3 of a flare up of symptoms.  I originally had PCS following two pretty rough concussions about 7 years ago. At that time I had an MRI showing TBI from hitting my head on a concrete floor.
Since, every few years I have a relapse of symptoms -if I bonk my head or some other trigger. Last big flare (until now) was last summer when I hit the top of my head pretty hard on a roof rafter.

I have a multi-part question for those who have had flares that may have originally been injury related.

1. ⁠How long do your flares normally last?
2. ⁠Do your flares usually disappear all at once or is it a gradual process. (I can’t remember how I got over this last time. I know it lasted 1-2 months and I scheduled a ton of Dr appointments -PCP, ENT, audiologist, optometrist, cranial CT, etc. I know by the time I was able to do all these ⁠my symptoms had disappeared so I dropped pursuing any further)
   3.Are there any steps you take to minimize or calm symptoms?  My symptoms are mostly neurological feeling but sometimes I get a racing heart, reflux, fleeing like I’m going to faint, and a panicked feeling.

Thanks for any feedback or useful tips. It’s been a really hard 3 weeks at work dealing with these symptoms. Screen time doesn’t seem to be too bad but the brain fog makes focusing hard, the random dizziness and fainting feeling makes me white-knuckle meetings or presentations, and the occasional cardiac-gut symptoms can be distressing.

I’m entering week 3 of a flare up of symptoms.  I originally had PCS following two pretty rough concussions about 7 years ago. At that time I had an MRI showing TBI from hitting my head on a concrete floor.
Since, every few years I have a relapse of symptoms -if I bonk my head or some other trigger. Last big flare (until now) was last summer when I hit the top of my head pretty hard on a roof rafter.

I have a multi-part question for those who have had flares.

1. ⁠How long do your flares normally last?
2. ⁠Do your flares usually disappear all at once or is it a gradual process. (I can’t remember how I got over this last time. I know it lasted 1-2 months and I scheduled a ton of Dr appointments -PCP, ENT, audiologist, optometrist, cranial CT, etc. I know by the time I was able to do all these ⁠my symptoms had disappeared so I dropped pursuing any further)
   3.Are there any steps you take to minimize or calm symptoms?  My symptoms are mostly neurological-feeling but sometimes I get a racing heart, reflux, fleeing like I’m going to faint, and a panicked feeling.

Thanks for any feedback or useful tips. It’s been a really hard 3 weeks at work dealing with these symptoms. Screen time doesn’t seem to be too bad but the brain fog makes focusing hard, the random dizziness and fainting feeling makes me white-knuckle meetings or presentations, and the occasional cardiac-gut symptoms can be distressing, along with bouts of exhaustion.

Long story short, I had two significant head injuries in 2019. A scan at the time indicated TBI and I had a couple months of horrendous post concussion syndrome. Mostly dizzy spells that bordered on fainting, brain fog, constant congested head feeling, muffled hearing, some nausea, severe head pressure, yawning attacks, and cardiac weirdness that was scary as hell. It was like both watching and being in a bad horror movie simultaneously. 

Since, I’ve had a couple of instances of symptom resurgence, usually after bonking my head again. No new concussions but the distressing symptoms returned, although for shorter periods of time. 

Now, I’ve recently been recovering from a major surgery (not head related). Sleeping has been challenging and so I was recommended to try low dose trazadone (25mg) to help with insomnia.  I tried trazadone for 4 or maybe 5 times. It made me drowsy but left me feeling groggy and with a headache the whole next day.  On the last night I tried trazadone, I woke up in a cold sweat (think Dysautonomia. The next day I had dizzy spells and since then I’ve had a resurgence of my PCS symptoms, including waking in the middle of the night due to dizziness while asleep and laying down. I’ve been a little over a week struggling with these symptoms and trying to hydrate my way back to feeling normal.  

Any tips for getting past this rough patch? It really makes work a challenge, plus nobody in personal life actually understands what this crap feels like.  I’m trying to act and live as normally as possible but it’s exhausting. 

This is going to sound insane but has anyone experienced concussion -like or neurological symptoms from GERD or severe acid reflux? I’ve had post concussion syndrome before and for about a week have been experiencing episodes that feel very similar. I have bouts of dizziness, horrible brain fog, a constant headache that moves around, head that feel “muffled”, nausea, racing heart rate at times, sleep disturbance, and horrendous reflux.

I’ve been on 40mg omeprazole for years and have to supplement with Famotidine and tums. Recently, the heartburn has kicked into overdrive. I’m wondering if acid induced nerve irritation (gut, cardiac, brain nerve connection) is causing the neurological symptoms or if the neurological symptoms are causing the gut to react. It’s driving me crazy and every night I pray that I’ll wake up the next day and be “back to normal”.

I’ve been thinking somehow an old post concussion episode returned but that doesn’t really make sense. It seems that something autonomic is out of whack but I don’t know of the problem is my gut or my brain.

Anyone have experience with how soon after surgery it was advised to resume a GLP? I stopped taking about 10 days prior to surgery and am now at 2 weeks post operation. Have not yet resumed the GLP. I do have a surgery post-operation consult coming up but wondering the experience of others.

I’ve received approval and am scheduled for a L2/L3 XLIF in little over 3 weeks. This will be my 3rd lumbar fusion since 2016.

The surgeon has scheduled a two step procedure, on two different days. First day will be XLIF surgery. The next day, he said could be “pinning” or screwing down the facet joints if the cage placed during the XLIF puts pressure on the facets causing significant pain.

My question for anyone with XLIF is did you have your facets pinned and if so was it done as part of one surgery, or split into two? Having done two spinal fusions I’d really love to have everything done all at once, rather than broken up over multiple days.