What is a concussion?

“Where am I? What in the world just happened? Oh, I am in my car. Now I think it’s starting to come back. Am I bleeding? No? Oh good, I guess I’m okay.”

And it’s always great if you’re not bleeding, but are you really okay?

One of the most commonly missed diagnoses is concussions during a car accident. Everyone thinks of whiplash and neck pain in car accidents. But if we don’t hit our head on the door or steering wheel or we don’t “remember” blacking out (sounds like a tough thing to remember happening if you aren’t conscious during it doesn’t it?”, then we as people and many medical providers don’t often think to check if we have a concussion. 

But what is a concussion? A concussion is an injury to your brain that messes with how your brain works, but a CT scan  or normal MRI can’t see any large structural damage. The damage that happens is very small. 

Your brain is made up of billions of neurons (brain cells) with trillions of connections to each other by axons. A concussion is when some of those axons, which can be thought of as strings that connect your brains together, shear or rip.

How can it happen if I don’t hit my head?

A concussion can happen when your brain is moving one way, but the rest of your skull moves another. If you are at rest, and you get hit by a car, then your body moves with the car, but your brain is different. Your brain is floating in a fluid called cerebral spinal fluid, one of the purposes of this fluid is to protect your brain from hitting against the hard edges of your skull and get damaged. This works pretty well in most average activities. 

But driving is not really normal for humans to do. 

And I don’t just mean those people who try to drive when they are all over the place and their blinker fluid is low, or those depending on their guardian angels to get them through a busy intersection while texting! 

Our bodies weren’t designed to handle getting hit by thousands of pounds and in two thirds of a second be thrown around like a rag doll. To paraphrase Isaac Newton, “an object in motion tends to stay in motion, and an object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by some external force”. So if you’re sitting in a car, at rest, minding your own business, and then WHAM, another car unexpectedly hits into yours, your car and body will be flung around a bit. But that cerebral spinal fluid will suspend the brain and delay its movement. This is still protective, but doesn’t protect you 100%. When your head stops whipping around, your brain will crash into your hard skull bones causing some of this bruising damage. This can cause a multitude of different symptoms that we will go over in our next blog, Part 2 of Concussions..

If you were in a car accident, it’s important that this key problem doesn’t get missed as it too often does. Please get checked by trained specialists who know what to look for in an accident. We are certified by the Personal Injury Training Institute. We are always happy to help in any way that we can.  

Drive safe and stay healthy my friends!

Dr. Jacob Wooten, Chiropractic Physician