Mild Head Injury!

Case Study:

A 33-year-old female with a history of headaches and neck pain came to the clinic for manual therapy. She reported she had been feeling the pain since she was in her 20s. She has to take over-the-counter medication before bed at least 3-4 times a week so she can wake up without any headache. With a full body assessment, I found the primary cause of the problem initially was the restrictions in her pelvis that built the tension in her entire spine. We treated her for a few sessions and while I was working on her cranium she remembered her car accident when she was in her twenties where her car rolled over but she did not hit her head or fall unconscious. She went to the Dr for scans and that showed no abnormality. She was very young so she took the doctor’s word and did not find it necessary to get evaluated further a few months later started to have headaches that became chronic and continued to get worse after her pregnancy as the demand on her body kept increasing.

This is a very classic case of mild concussion where there was no direct trauma to the head but due to the momentum of the accident her brain was shaken up within the cranium. That shaking caused twisting and folding up of the fascia covering the brain. The restrictions caused decreased circulation and fluid flow leading to chronic headaches. In 3 weeks post-treatment with manual therapy, she was able to sleep without taking medications and was able to function better with decreased intensity and frequency of headaches.

Conclusion

The patient was unable to connect her symptoms with the past trauma as the Dr told her she was fine from just looking at her scans and seeing no damage to the brain. The scans may not be able to pick up the damage caused to the fascia by the accident which leads to a lot of people suffering with post-concussion syndrome without proper treatment.