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[RC] Head Injury - Bruce Weary

Hi Chris--
First, let me wish you a speedy recovery. Your history of nausea and dizziness that is relieved by manipulation gives certain clues to your problem. Presuming you sustained no brain damage, it's likely your balance mechanism was upset by the trauma to the neck that is usually sustained when it absorbs forces from a blow to the head or face. There are three interactive balance mechanisms. First, your eyes tell you where horizontal is. Then there are tiny little rocks in your inner ear, called "otoliths" that attach to hair cells which are bathed in fluid. When you head moves, the otoliths move the hairs, which stimulate nerve endings and tell the brain which way is up. Follow me so far? Thirdly, we have nerves throughout our body that tell us all about where our body parts are and whether they are moving or not. This is called "proprioception." The joints of the neck have a very high concentration of these nerves, and they are very commonly injured or disturbed with head/neck trauma. The input from the eyes and ears is combined with the information from the neck, and the brain interprets it to give you balance and keep you from falling over. When the information is garbled, dizziness is the common result, and it is often accompanied by nausea. Since they found nothing dangerously wrong with you, and the chiropractor eliminated the dizziness and nausea so quickly, the problem is probably from trauma to your neck joints and disruption of the nerve endings. This is very commonly corrected with gentle manipulation. In addition, the otoliths can be dislodged from their normal position and cause abnormal signal to the brain, resulting in dizziness and nausea. There is also treatment for this, best done by an ear/nose/throat doctor.
A good chiro is probably your best bet, in light of the improvement you have already had. If any other neurological symptoms arise, though, it's good to have a neurologist on the team, too.
As far as the broken nose, you could always call "Extreme Makeover" for an estimate. :>
Good luck, Dr Q who also has little rocks in his head.
P.S. Post-Concussive Syndrome is very real, but it is really a list of symptoms that arise after head trauma that may or may not actually involve a concussion. The symptoms can be multi-causal, some of which I discussed above. A proper medical/neurologic/chiropractic evaluation is necessary to determine the right course of care.



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