How Do You Know When You Have A Traumatic Brain Injury?
Brian O Sutter
Personal Injury
The brain is a complex, tricky organ, and it’s not always easy to tell how it’s doing. The human brain is a major energy hog, and so while the average person burns 1,300 calories staying alive each day, the brain alone is responsible for a little over 300 calories per day. That’s around one-quarter of the total number, an incredible amount of energy to be spending on an organ that weighs just three pounds on average.The brain is so dense with nerves and uses so many chemicals and electrical signals that even today medical science can only scratch the surface when it comes to understanding the brain and the human mind. While doctors can test injuries to other parts of the body and figure out the problem with a good chance of success, a brain injury can slip past unnoticed and not make itself known until days after the injury took place. Still, there are a few reliable symptoms and indicators you can use to decide when to see a doctor.
The Blow Itself
If you take a hard blow to the head, hard enough to knock you flat on your back or make you black out for even a moment, then that’s a strong enough blow to cause a traumatic brain injury. A concussion is a type of brain injury, and just one concussion can cause effects that stay around for years. You might not notice all the effects of a traumatic brain injury right after you get hurt, but if you meet with a doctor right away and stay in touch over the next few weeks, you’ll be ready no matter what comes next.
Motor Control Issues
Big parts of your brain are devoted to controlling your body. If these parts get injured, you can experience symptoms that seem to affect the rest of your body. Symptoms include:
• Seizures
• Headache
• Drowsiness
• Nausea and vomiting
• Insomnia
• Dizziness and lost coordination
• Numbness in the fingers and toes
• Pupil dilation
Mental Control Issues
A lot of your brain takes in sensory information, considers it, and then decides what to do. A traumatic brain injury can also affect the parts of the brain that make these decisions, and that can lead to a lot of problems. These problems include:
• Speech issues, including speaking and understanding others
• Blurred vision, ear ringing, different smells, and so on
• Memory problems
• Mood swings or unusual levels of anxiety or depression
• Confusion
Of course, none of these symptoms guarantee that you have a traumatic brain injury and not some other problem. However, if you experience a few at once and you can remember taking a blow to the head, there’s a good chance that you have a brain injury and should see a doctor.
Depending on the situation, you may also want to see a lawyer. At the All Injuries Law Firm, our practice areas include all kinds of accidents and injuries, including the head injuries that often happen during traffic accidents. We understand that traumatic brain injuries can be dangerous, hard to treat, and hard to detect, which is why it helps to have legal representatives defending you against skeptical insurance companies. So if you got in an accident in southwest Florida, contact us today for a free case review.