What to do between now and your appointment.
Read this while you wait for your visit. It is what we tell patients in the room.
🔋 What a concussion is
A sudden mismatch between the energy your brain cells need and the energy they can make. Scans look for bleeding and fractures; they cannot see that energy gap. That is why a normal CT and real symptoms happen together so often.
🛌 The first 24 to 48 hours
Relative rest: quiet, light activity, normal sleep. Not a week in a dark room. The 2022 international consensus on concussion moved away from strict rest because it does not speed recovery.
📵 Screens
In 125 patients aged 12 to 25 seen in an emergency department, those who stayed off screens for the first 48 hours had symptoms for a median 3.5 days, against 8.0 days for those who did not.
🚶 Move early, below your symptom line
After the first day or two, walk or ride a stationary bike at a pace that raises symptoms by less than 2 points out of 10 and settles within the hour. In 103 teenage athletes, about 20 minutes a day of this in the first week cut recovery to a median 13 days, against 17 for stretching.
😴 Sleep
Same bedtime, same wake time, no naps over 30 minutes. Sleep is treatment, not downtime.
🍺 Alcohol and drugs
None until a physician clears you. They blunt the brain’s repair and mask symptoms we need to see.
🚗 Driving
Not while you feel slowed, foggy or dizzy. Reaction time can lag behind how you feel.
🏫 Work and school
Go back in steps: shorter days, breaks, fewer screens. You do not have to be symptom-free to start.
🩺 At your visit
A physician examines you, tests eye movements, balance and the neck, goes through these scores with you, and documents the injury properly. See how we test and how we treat.
🚨 Call 911 at any point for
a headache that keeps getting worse, repeated vomiting, a seizure, weakness or numbness, slurred speech, growing confusion, unequal pupils, or being hard to wake.
