My partner had a concussion many years ago, it was an eye-opening experience.
After months of mostly-useless conversations with doctors, neurologists, etc, we visited a sports medicine specialist who worked with snowboarders, skiers, etc, people who get concussions frequently.
The way the specialist described common concussion symptoms was really interesting: Effectively, your brain finds balance by using a combination of sight, touch (feet), and your inner ear. A concussion can impact the inner ear part of that equation, so your brain is overly reliant on sight and touch to compensate. This can cause all kinds of common concussion symptoms: Dizziness, sensitivity to screen time, etc.
Anyways, after giving us the rundown my partner was prompted to do a few simple exercises to test concussion symptoms. One of them was to stand on one leg and track a moving pen with her eyes. She'd done OK on some of the previous exercises but this one took her out, she lasted maybe 5 seconds and was completely exhausted and dizzy for the rest of the day because of it.
We ended up with a physical-therapy-like balance exercise plan that she stuck to regularly for a few months, and it ended up getting her to complete recovery.
Scotty, from Strange Parts, aka the youtube guy who showed the world that Apple could have included a headphone jack this whole time, went through a similar set of circumstances.
Like you said, extremely eye opening, and very good information to have. There is help available, and it likely won't come from a normal neurologist until their training catches up to the research.
People often seem to have a casual attitude to concussion; you read sports star X is out with a concussion and think little of it. Another word for concussion is "traumatic brain injury" and that tends to get it across better. I had a bad concussion a while ago and I still get occasional headaches, I had a tinnitus for months (if you are unlucky, it stays with you forever) and my sense of smell is permanently altered. I was ultimately lucky on that one too, enough force and you can permanently sever the connection to your olfactory receptors.
The neck is also surprisingly fairly involved in the balance system, I unfortunately have a lifelong inner ear deficit (deafness and vestibular) on one side and there have been times where neck tightness caused significant issues with my eye tracking (nystagmus). It’s really all connected, also salt intake, caffeine etc. can impact your balance / dizziness due to the pressure in your inner ear canals where the otoliths are swimming.
I once had a bad dream and violently shifted in bed hard enough to headbutt the connected nightstand next to my pillow (weird design). Hard enough to bleed.
I was dizzy for days whenever I laid down. It was as if I was spinning in an amusement park ride slowly.
I called an ex GF neuro radiologist, who after realizing I wasn't going to go in for any scans (no health insurance at the time), told me of a series of "brain/balance reset exercises" you can do. I did the exercises, moving my head in several positions in a particular order, and all symptoms went away.
Do you or anybody else have any resources to share regarding such training? I suffered a concussion 5 years ago and two more shortly after, and I still suffer from regular dizziness due to sunlight / busy environments and after too much screen time. It has taken away much of the joy of my twenties. Thank you.
Glad to hear your partner is better. My wife dealt with a serious brain injury in her early 20s (she has since fully recovered) and it’s always a concern of mine if she were to be hit in the head again.
I’ve taken close to ten years’ of martial arts training, but I don’t watch MMA because the judges consistently allow about two more head strikes than necessary before intervening. In a lot of the footage I have seen, that’s going from 2-3 to 4-5 which is egregious. Every single takedown ends up looking like a boxer getting trapped in the corner and massacred, and I don’t like those either. In fact I think boxing ring corners should be treated like fouls in baseball and count toward a TKO.
In MMA, if someone’s head is bouncing off the mat then you should be grabbing the opponent's elbow immediately.
- The judges just score the match and sit outside the ring. They do not have the power to stop a fight. The referee is supposed to intervene.
- It's a common misconception that fight referees belong to the UFC. For fights, an athletic commission is responsible for refereeing. In most fights, this is the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
- The UFC has been quite vocal and registered many formal complaints with NSAC when a referee allowed too many punches before stopping a fight. There was that referee that I'll only mention by first name, so I don't get sued: Steve.
- It is my opinion that professional MMA fighters need some sort of independent organization that oversees their well-being and assures they get proper medical care. It should be funded from fight profits. Things like what's happened to Spencer Fisher should not be happening.
I agree that MMA allows too many punches, but it is better than what happens in boxing. One solid punch in an MMA fight usually ends it. The refs should be faster at getting there, but that's better than people who get to beat to a twilight in boxing, but never quite get knocked out.
> judges consistently allow about two more head strikes than necessary
I don't agree that consistently is the right word. I've certainly seen more extra hits than necessary, but good refs step in fast and with authority. Perhaps you watched lower rank fights with less experienced refs?
Yeah, I train Muay Thai and I've never gotten into watching MMA for similar reasons. I don't even really like all the "entertainment" Muay Thai with 4oz gloves that One has been promoting, it feels like they really want the blood and higher risk of injury to draw a crowd. I recently was watching some more traditional, older Muay Thai fights with a friend who doesn't train, and they found it somewhat boring, probably because they're not seeing what someone that has trained is seeing. In entertainment Muay Thai I've seen refs let knees to the head slide when it's clear the person is already knocked out and they're on their way to the canvas.
Recently there was an interview with Takrowlek Dejrat [1] and he talks about how defense was something that they spent a lot of time with first as kids training, which is different than this generation of fighters. Which I find to be true in my own training, I often feel like working on defense is something we only drill as an after-thought to offense.
I place equal blame on the fighters who keep throwing punches at someone who is obviously out. If they don't have the self control to stop then they have no business learning martial arts.
I've taken to just watching pure BJJ for that reason. Much more intricate, still violent, but, because there's no striking you don't see that many head injuries.
Valid points but isn't any punch to the head likely to cause issues, even mild concussion? And then repeated blows over a career likely lead to long term problems?
I could see it working with boxing treating someone trapped in the corner as a knockdown (1 point deduction) and moving them back to the middle. Nothing will truly prevent concussions in heavyweight fights though, a single punch coming from an unexpected angle can be enough there.
I boxed a lot from 11-14. It was what my group of friends did for fun -- boxed each other as well as trained in a professional setting under a coach. There was this one kid in particular that was known to be a troublemaker. I was hanging with some friends and that troublemaker was there.
The neighbor (a grown man) was hanging outside when the troublemaker started trash talking the guy for no reason. "Put the gloves on and box me, p*y!" After about 10 minutes of that, the guy agreed. Punched the kid a few times in the head. He was done.
We walked down into town and the kid asked us how we got there. He had no recollection of us walking down the street. Scary stuff. From then on, he became even worse. Last I knew he was in jail.
I'll never forget that. The headaches I got after sparring were eye openers and I quit. Jiu-Jitsu is much friendlier in regards to your brain, but probably worse for your spine, elbows, and knees... Have to train something, though. Nobody should be the gardener in a war.
Oof. The thing no one wants to talk about. Repeated concussions are bad news.
>>Most of the year I would be having concussion symptoms. There are grades of severity but my worst was being thrown on the back of my head at the Pan-American [Judo] Championships in Argentina. I completely blacked out till the next morning.”
Rousey’s concerns were ignored. “I’d be treated like I was complaining about a headache. People would say: ‘Your head hurts? Suck it up. What if your head hurts during the Olympics?’ That’s how I was taught to deal with it from a very young age. It became a way of life.”<<
Judo as a sport has now gone out of its way to prevent this moving forward. Head diving for techniques and defense is now a disqualifying penalty and every coach and black belt (at least in the US) is required to maintain up to date concussion training annually.
The consequences of repeated head injuries from sports and fighting are well known and understood since 1920.
Doing impact sports (football!) professionally or fighting professionally and staying healthy is just not possible without neutering the sports. Maybe this should be made even clearer.
My mom had a concussion in the 1960s and was repeatedly told by her doctor that she was not to do any activities that put her at risk of another head-injury for at least 6 months because sequential concussions are so bad.
You can imagine her reaction when the NFL played stupid with "we had no idea the players needed so long to recover" 40 years later.
I think helmets were, to a large degree, merely there so that the fans could pretend players weren't getting concussions as often as they really were. Boxing fans (and non-fans) are aware that getting hit in the head a lot is bad, but there aren't enough boxing fans in the US to fill a single NFL stadium, much less 16 a week.
Should clarify which football. For most of the world football === soccer and that is a much safer sport where career athletes don't end up with concussions.
American Football, like Australian Rugby is a much more violent sport.
Except not really, I wouldn’t be surprised if CTE is actually higher in non-athletes, nobody is checking the mass majority of these people. The insurance companies always make accident related CTE into another illness so it’s impossible to say, but look outside the US. A LOT more realistic stats.
Bare knuckle boxing is much less damaging to the brain than boxing / mma. You can’t punch somebodies skull with any degree of force unless you want to break your hands. Much more precision is required.
There tend to be more cuts and thus more blood, but that seems like a better trade off.
I don't follow MMA, but I picked up Ronda Rousey's first book, My Fight/Your Fight and couldn't put it down. I then listened to it on audiobook, which she narrates with style and ease. Her story is absolutely incredible, and she and her ghostwriter do a great job sharing it. The first book is all about what it takes to be a fighter, with Rousey undefeated, at the height of her career. Ronda is adorable and terrifying, inspiring and impressive through and through.
I just got her second book, which addresses what it was like to get beaten after going 15:0, then beaten again. I think she's going to talk about finding a way forward after her whole identity was being a fighter. I started today and can't wait to get into it.
She seems like an interesting person, not the crazy brute "they" made her sound like in her losses in UFC.
Concussions should be taken seriously. The idea of waving off a rattled brain as a headache, and keep playing through, makes me cringe in the literal sense.
I've had 3-4 of them, and I worry about my memory and mental performance over time. I'm only in my mid 30s.
She had a successful and undramatic judo career before MMA. She was well respected in that sport from what I can remember.
UFC isn't professional wrestling or anything but western combat sports have a tradition of a bit of theatricality and showmanship to them. Those are probably real elements of her personality to some extent, but choosing to visibly play them out was surely as much a marketing decision as a personal one.
By contrast judo tends to be skeptical of that sort of presentation, and as a judoka it wasn't very apparent in her interactions.
Totally not the point of the article but the claim that she was "the world's most dominate athlete" piqued my interest as I've never really heard of her. Apparently SI published this in 2015(the link in the article to SI is broken).
This is the same year that Serena Williams, a household name, won the first three Grand Slam singles tournaments. This coming off a 2014 US Open win so 4 in a row. Anyway, some historical context lol.
Ronda Rousey won eight fights in a row with the same technique. In five of those, it took less than a minute.
Imagine a soccer player saying she was going to take the ball from midfield, go straight down the middle, and then drill it into the top left corner of the goal, and it working eight times in a row.
Then she won four more fights, all very quickly and with more diverse skill set. It was shocking.
I've had a lot of concussions as well. Actually, I'm pretty sure I don't even know. We only really deemed them concussions if you blacked out. And I did that a lot. I've lost weeks of memory and my life to them. I have no idea how many 'lesser' concussions I've had, likely in the hundreds to low thousands.
One thing I've not seen discussed here is the emotional side of recovery. I pretty much was manic-depressive. I would have just the highest highs. I've never felt better in my life before or since. Just felt like everything was great and that the world was amazing. And then I would have the lowest lows. Suicidal ideation, couldn't get out of bed, loosing friends, unfortunately typical stuff. I'd laugh at really weird things, I'd get angry at normal stuff. My brain was making me crazy and it took a toll of myself and those around me. I'm better now, but it took years of healing and mostly bumbling along.
Sure, yeah, I had (and still do) problems with memory, vision, and hearing. But for me, it was the emotional stuff that was most surprising. I don't tend to see a lot of that in anecdotes and research.
I know that I'm likely going to end up with dementia or something worse. I know I'm going to loose my marbles. And I'm still trying to make peace with that. I don't know if I ever really will. Any tips here would be appreciated.
If anyone else with a lot of concussions wants to chime in on their experiences, I'm happy to chat here.
I really appreciate that you are so open about it. More and more people should talk about concussions and their story, I had a few as a kid living on a farm … and now 2.5 decades later, I m realizing what concussions really are. Maybe they were not that serious, I hope so.
One thing many don't talk about is the social aspect of getting a concussion. An acquaintance has decided to try to do something about that: https://concussionbox.org/ (Disclaimer: no involvement/attachment with the site, just thought it was relevant here.)
I enjoyed watching combat sports for a number of years, but I turned it off awhile back: fighters not showing restraint when the other is down, refs not jumping in quick enough, and not enough TKOs being called.
The difference between fighting someone and maiming them is a single punch.
In rugby there is not protective gear unlike American Football and even I made fun of them for being softies but recently a former rugby player donated his brain and it looked like mashed potatoes.
His decline and last days was not good according to his family.
I just read recently that the best way to recover from a concussion is to keep moving. There might be a one day lag, but rest and staying home in bed is bad for this. You have to keep using your head before damage sets in. That way you can maintain function.
Helen Maroulis is another athlete openly talking about concussion.
I'm a referee in wrestling (Olympic styles) and I don't let the match to continue until the competition doctor clears the wrestler after a hit in the head.
Antonio Brown's biggest red flag on his scouting reports coming out of college was his character. His behavior may or may not have anything to do with that concussion.
Her background in judo always seemed to me like an adequate explanation for her tendency to get the fight on the ground as quickly as possible. I didn't really think of concussions as something that would happen in judo. I wish her the best, she faces an unknown future.
Rising popularity of MMA in the last decade or two astonished me. I was wondering if the average value of having a functioning brain dropped so much in the new millenium.
[+] [-] ruddct|1 year ago|reply
After months of mostly-useless conversations with doctors, neurologists, etc, we visited a sports medicine specialist who worked with snowboarders, skiers, etc, people who get concussions frequently.
The way the specialist described common concussion symptoms was really interesting: Effectively, your brain finds balance by using a combination of sight, touch (feet), and your inner ear. A concussion can impact the inner ear part of that equation, so your brain is overly reliant on sight and touch to compensate. This can cause all kinds of common concussion symptoms: Dizziness, sensitivity to screen time, etc.
Anyways, after giving us the rundown my partner was prompted to do a few simple exercises to test concussion symptoms. One of them was to stand on one leg and track a moving pen with her eyes. She'd done OK on some of the previous exercises but this one took her out, she lasted maybe 5 seconds and was completely exhausted and dizzy for the rest of the day because of it.
We ended up with a physical-therapy-like balance exercise plan that she stuck to regularly for a few months, and it ended up getting her to complete recovery.
[+] [-] jtriangle|1 year ago|reply
Here're the videos where he talks about it: https://www.youtube.com/@StrangeParts/search?query=brain
Like you said, extremely eye opening, and very good information to have. There is help available, and it likely won't come from a normal neurologist until their training catches up to the research.
[+] [-] stefan_|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] tetraodonpuffer|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] talldatethrow|1 year ago|reply
I was dizzy for days whenever I laid down. It was as if I was spinning in an amusement park ride slowly.
I called an ex GF neuro radiologist, who after realizing I wasn't going to go in for any scans (no health insurance at the time), told me of a series of "brain/balance reset exercises" you can do. I did the exercises, moving my head in several positions in a particular order, and all symptoms went away.
The brain is crazy.
[+] [-] aramndrt|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] onemoresoop|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] 1992spacemovie|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] hinkley|1 year ago|reply
In MMA, if someone’s head is bouncing off the mat then you should be grabbing the opponent's elbow immediately.
[+] [-] runjake|1 year ago|reply
- The judges just score the match and sit outside the ring. They do not have the power to stop a fight. The referee is supposed to intervene.
- It's a common misconception that fight referees belong to the UFC. For fights, an athletic commission is responsible for refereeing. In most fights, this is the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
- The UFC has been quite vocal and registered many formal complaints with NSAC when a referee allowed too many punches before stopping a fight. There was that referee that I'll only mention by first name, so I don't get sued: Steve.
- It is my opinion that professional MMA fighters need some sort of independent organization that oversees their well-being and assures they get proper medical care. It should be funded from fight profits. Things like what's happened to Spencer Fisher should not be happening.
[+] [-] matwood|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] psychlops|1 year ago|reply
I don't agree that consistently is the right word. I've certainly seen more extra hits than necessary, but good refs step in fast and with authority. Perhaps you watched lower rank fights with less experienced refs?
[+] [-] mtalantikite|1 year ago|reply
Recently there was an interview with Takrowlek Dejrat [1] and he talks about how defense was something that they spent a lot of time with first as kids training, which is different than this generation of fighters. Which I find to be true in my own training, I often feel like working on defense is something we only drill as an after-thought to offense.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsDfdeQ5iRM
[+] [-] djtango|1 year ago|reply
Some extra awareness will hopefully help
[+] [-] harimau777|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] jtriangle|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] swader999|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] aidenn0|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] whatamidoingyo|1 year ago|reply
The neighbor (a grown man) was hanging outside when the troublemaker started trash talking the guy for no reason. "Put the gloves on and box me, p*y!" After about 10 minutes of that, the guy agreed. Punched the kid a few times in the head. He was done.
We walked down into town and the kid asked us how we got there. He had no recollection of us walking down the street. Scary stuff. From then on, he became even worse. Last I knew he was in jail.
I'll never forget that. The headaches I got after sparring were eye openers and I quit. Jiu-Jitsu is much friendlier in regards to your brain, but probably worse for your spine, elbows, and knees... Have to train something, though. Nobody should be the gardener in a war.
[+] [-] instagib|1 year ago|reply
>>Most of the year I would be having concussion symptoms. There are grades of severity but my worst was being thrown on the back of my head at the Pan-American [Judo] Championships in Argentina. I completely blacked out till the next morning.”
Rousey’s concerns were ignored. “I’d be treated like I was complaining about a headache. People would say: ‘Your head hurts? Suck it up. What if your head hurts during the Olympics?’ That’s how I was taught to deal with it from a very young age. It became a way of life.”<<
[+] [-] enahs-sf|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Traubenfuchs|1 year ago|reply
Doing impact sports (football!) professionally or fighting professionally and staying healthy is just not possible without neutering the sports. Maybe this should be made even clearer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalopat...
[+] [-] aidenn0|1 year ago|reply
You can imagine her reaction when the NFL played stupid with "we had no idea the players needed so long to recover" 40 years later.
I think helmets were, to a large degree, merely there so that the fans could pretend players weren't getting concussions as often as they really were. Boxing fans (and non-fans) are aware that getting hit in the head a lot is bad, but there aren't enough boxing fans in the US to fill a single NFL stadium, much less 16 a week.
[+] [-] nojvek|1 year ago|reply
American Football, like Australian Rugby is a much more violent sport.
[+] [-] screenoridesaga|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] callamdelaney|1 year ago|reply
There tend to be more cuts and thus more blood, but that seems like a better trade off.
[+] [-] nojvek|1 year ago|reply
Seen some pretty bad knuckle fights in high school where someone ended in a hospital pretty messed up.
[+] [-] wolverine876|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] maxverse|1 year ago|reply
I just got her second book, which addresses what it was like to get beaten after going 15:0, then beaten again. I think she's going to talk about finding a way forward after her whole identity was being a fighter. I started today and can't wait to get into it.
[+] [-] unethical_ban|1 year ago|reply
Concussions should be taken seriously. The idea of waving off a rattled brain as a headache, and keep playing through, makes me cringe in the literal sense.
I've had 3-4 of them, and I worry about my memory and mental performance over time. I'm only in my mid 30s.
[+] [-] giraffe_lady|1 year ago|reply
UFC isn't professional wrestling or anything but western combat sports have a tradition of a bit of theatricality and showmanship to them. Those are probably real elements of her personality to some extent, but choosing to visibly play them out was surely as much a marketing decision as a personal one.
By contrast judo tends to be skeptical of that sort of presentation, and as a judoka it wasn't very apparent in her interactions.
[+] [-] ilikecakeandpie|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Rapzid|1 year ago|reply
This is the same year that Serena Williams, a household name, won the first three Grand Slam singles tournaments. This coming off a 2014 US Open win so 4 in a row. Anyway, some historical context lol.
[+] [-] bumby|1 year ago|reply
https://www.si.com/mma/2015/05/12/ronda-rousey-ufc-mma-fight...
[+] [-] kevinmchugh|1 year ago|reply
Imagine a soccer player saying she was going to take the ball from midfield, go straight down the middle, and then drill it into the top left corner of the goal, and it working eight times in a row.
Then she won four more fights, all very quickly and with more diverse skill set. It was shocking.
[+] [-] singleshot_|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Balgair|1 year ago|reply
One thing I've not seen discussed here is the emotional side of recovery. I pretty much was manic-depressive. I would have just the highest highs. I've never felt better in my life before or since. Just felt like everything was great and that the world was amazing. And then I would have the lowest lows. Suicidal ideation, couldn't get out of bed, loosing friends, unfortunately typical stuff. I'd laugh at really weird things, I'd get angry at normal stuff. My brain was making me crazy and it took a toll of myself and those around me. I'm better now, but it took years of healing and mostly bumbling along.
Sure, yeah, I had (and still do) problems with memory, vision, and hearing. But for me, it was the emotional stuff that was most surprising. I don't tend to see a lot of that in anecdotes and research.
I know that I'm likely going to end up with dementia or something worse. I know I'm going to loose my marbles. And I'm still trying to make peace with that. I don't know if I ever really will. Any tips here would be appreciated.
If anyone else with a lot of concussions wants to chime in on their experiences, I'm happy to chat here.
Sorry, this comment is kinda strange.
[+] [-] BonoboIO|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ljnelson|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] exabrial|1 year ago|reply
The difference between fighting someone and maiming them is a single punch.
[+] [-] tibbydudeza|1 year ago|reply
His decline and last days was not good according to his family.
[+] [-] serial_dev|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Projectiboga|1 year ago|reply
https://slate.com/technology/2024/03/concussion-symptoms-sig...
[+] [-] helge9210|1 year ago|reply
Helen Maroulis is another athlete openly talking about concussion.
I'm a referee in wrestling (Olympic styles) and I don't let the match to continue until the competition doctor clears the wrestler after a hit in the head.
[+] [-] dzonga|1 year ago|reply
There's AB before the hit and AB after the hit.
youtube link to the hit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8iFSP_S5h8
most times you think -- concussions are a matter of repeated effect -- but one can change your life drastically.
[+] [-] UberFly|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] TomMasz|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] tibbydudeza|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] scotty79|1 year ago|reply