What do early stage CTE headaches feel like?
I'm 28 years old and have reason to believe I'm currently in the early stages of CTE development. I've played contact sports like soccer since I was young, and skateboarded all through my teens and 20s, including some major concussions in that time requiring hospitalization. I had a snowboarding season just over two yrs ago where I suffered a lot of neuraltrauma from repeat falls/concussive and subconcussive impacts, none at knockout level but a few that dazed me and left me with lingering symptoms like tingling on the ends of my fingers and toes. 6 months later when I was still in recovery, I was violently assaulted with many hits to the front of my head and temple.
Ever since, I have dealt with a near constant brain fog, varying levels of fatigue, feelings of overstimulation and minor/occasional difficulties socializing or following movie dialogue or reading. I have (had!!) a good brain and notice that my processing has taken a hit. Also some difficulty in short term memory, remembering words, light speech issues/slurring or tripping over my sentence slightly. More recently I noticed that my hand-eye coordination was a bit worse with dropping/not picking things up properly. Thankfully I haven't noticed any behavioural changes yet.
I had a big weekend a couple weeks back celebrating friends birthdays/going away, and ever since I have had this constant headache unlike any that I'm really familiar with. It feels deeper, like it could be a migraine but it's quite light. More annoying than painful. Every day I wake up it feels like it has moved a few cm to a slightly different spot in my head. Painkillers seem to mask it not take it away. Feels like a rot deep in my brain type shit.
I want to stress that I am currently still pretty functional and all these symptoms are (at this stage) very light. I work, hang out with my friends, make music, do pretty much exactly what I've always done. However, my battery for activities is lower, I get tired earlier, and the dawn of my potential brain disease has made me feel so hopeless about everything.
I would also love to hear everyone's recommendation on prolonging/slowing down the inevitable decline. I really love life and I'm beating myself up about being so fucking aloof regarding brain trauma.