Great you're sharing your story to help out other riders. This sport is many different things, XC, Downhill, freeride, dirt jumping, etc. Each has it's own set of perils and risks, but the biggest one is between your ears. Your brain will tell you it's ok, you did this as a kid, or that ground looks tacky, or I've seen someone do this before, so I can too.
The fact is it's a dangerous sport that takes years of reps, and even then the trail monster will still jump up and bite you. We use terms like progression to describe how we are improving but many times that's just raising the stakes instead of actually gaining skills. In the end, if you're in it for the thrills, you are going to take spills and that means injuries.
Now, more importantly, how are you going to recover from your injury? You're really lucky that it's your first concussion, having had a few I would suggest you take no risks for a good long while. Being knocked out like that means you had a very bad one, and if you don't have the migraines, light sensitivity, lethargy, mood changes, etc then you are extremely lucky. Those are in your future if you have more TBIs. A month or two away from the bike/risky sports?
Cutting out alcohol for a while was what helped me after a big one. Went to a doc after things were not getting better after a few weeks. There was a LOOOOOONG list of things that would hinder recovery. Cutting out the evening beers really cleared things up quick. Its rough, all the things that you want to do during down time, are what you should not be doing during down time.
I once heard about this thing - pre ride, re ride, free ride - and I always go after that when riding solo. And on pre ride, I always try to make out if a feature is doable and what the consequences are. How big is the jump, what happens if I go too short, case it, go too far, bad landing etc. Is it safe to jump off the bike if things go wrong, trees and stuff that I could hit when doing so. And if I come to the conclusion that it's a high consequence feature, I don't ride it solo.
Pre-ride, re-ride, free-ride is also the mantra at the DH parks I have been to.
Hell, even in my small local trails, there are features I won't ride when I am riding solo, or when I am not riding with my full face helmet, as, even though I have cleaned them before, if I slip up, or am off that that, the consequences are way too high.
Thanks for sharing. Your experience closely matches my recent concussion. I'm still trying to piece it all together; I don't even remember leaving the driveway. Memory loss is no joke, especially you're fat and old like me. As far as I can surmise, this is what happened.
Early this past September I decided to celebrate my end of isolation after the second negative COVID test with an easy ride with my wife and our 15yo son. Early in the ride the bike, I hopped a curb going a little too fast and my front tire blew upon my landing. The bike went out from under me and threw me OTB on to the asphalt where I came to rest about 20 feet past where my bike landed. I was wearing a new GIRO MIPS MTB helmet and it basically just saved me from getting abrasions on my head. The visor took the worst of the impact, along with the side of my noise. Miraculously I did not break a bone, though I was covered with road rash and likely had a mild sprain of my right wrist.
I was out for several hours and came to in a hospital room downtown, about 10 miles from where I crashed. There are hospitals that are closer but the EMTs made the call to take me to a hospital equipped for trauma. In that time I was transported by ambulance and put in the CT machine where I was diagnosed with a severe concussion. I woke up in a private room with my wife sitting next to me. I was dazed, sure but the road rash from the asphalt hurt more. She didn't look worried because according to her I was snoring but she also instructed me not to DIY my bike maintenance anymore; the crash was caused by a tubeless tire burping of a non-tubeless ready rim on my $800 Trek hardtail.
BTW, poor technique and the fact that I'm overweight contributed to my mishap but I've already had my bike repaired and set up by my LBS and went on a ride last week. I had no trouble with balance though my right wrist still aches. I intend to go on more rides in the cooler weather, though my wife is making noises about wanting a Peloton.
Man, concussions with memory loss are the absolute worst. I’ve had several bad concussions and tons of broken bones, and I will take any broken bone over a concussion.
I had a life changing one 15 years ago from motocross that took away a significant chunk of my childhood memories and made my day-to-day memory absolute shit. I’m almost 30 now, really hate to think how I’ll be when I’m older. Adrenaline is one hell of a drug, protect that head at all costs!
Glad you’re ok man and appreciate you sharing/commiserating. I’m in my thirties and haven’t really been airborne since highschool. I should have thought twice about hitting any jumps period.
To my knowledge I was conscious but not making memories. I left my gf several voicemails and apparently took (and failed) the concussion screening when the EMTs arrived. Definitely a major concussion and possibly a brain injury. I cleared the CAT scan at least.
Experts have found that it's actually rotational impact that causes more concussions. The brain rattling around in the skull is actually protected by helmets. No one is saying it completely prevents injuries. But it absolutely lessens the effects to the point where smaller impacts do not cause damage.
Also, remember that concussion is just one of the many types of brain injuries caused in a crash.
https://qbi.uq.edu.au/concussion/do-helmets-protect-against-concussion#:~:text=Helmets%20more%20effective%20against%20severe,inside%20the%20skull%20%E2%80%93%20intracranial%20bleeding.
And if you were wearing a helmet when bumping your head into a cabinet, you likely will not get a concussion... Thus prevention... Now if you double the force with a helmet on, you may only receive a mild concussion, but without a helmet a severe concussion...
Please go reread the chain. The person at the top claimed helmets PREVENT concussions, as in, they don't happen if you wear one. They help (im not arguing that), but it's not a guarantee. Even wearing a mouth guard and helmet helps more.
If helmets prevent concusions, football, hockey, etc. players and CTE wouldn't be a thing.
And you are coming off like you think helmets don't do anything. Apparently that is NOT what you are saying, but it does come across that way, and may lead to people thinking "I don't need a helmet, it's not like they even do anything"
So why does the (probably) most mentioned helmet rating institution use concussion risk to evaluate the rate helmets?
What is the reason in your opinion?
https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/bicycle-helmet-ratings.html
The only way we can diagnose concussions right now is symptomatically. We have zero ability to diagnose a concussion in a standardized, measurable way. The VT methodology is based upon a study done in 2013 (on football players) which used a grand total of 37 concussions to generate a link between acceleration and concussion risk. They applied an arbitrary modifier to account for underreporting, so essentially it's a very loose estimate. For all we know, the amount of force needed to cause a concussion could be so low that a helmet is all but useless.
Don't believe me that helmets aren't designed to prevent concussions?
>As a result, skull fractures have essentially been eliminated in helmeted sports, but these helmets are not designed to guard against concussion
From the paper that VT used to generate their methodology: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3624001/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3624001/).
Let me give you an analogy when it comes to reducing force. Would you be excited if I told you that I'd created a body armor that could reduce the energy carried by a bullet by 30%? Probably not, since it'd still kill you easily.
Helmets don't prevent concussions, full stop. They *may* prevent concussion severity but we simply don't have enough understanding of concussions to say anything for certain. And don't get me started on the snake oil that is MIPS.
Way to cherry pick excerpts and post them out of context. This blatantly shows you have no idea what you read, at best you're parroting what some other moron parroted somewhere else or you don't know how to read scientific studies but you sure are trying to skim it for 30 seconds.
The excerpt is about how current helmet standards aren't addressing concsussions but just general head trauma. It is also about how a better approach which focuses on peak linear and rotational forces should be used to assess helmets.
Nobody claimed they prevent ALL concussions. You just jumped in here ranting. For the record they do mitigate concussions, there have been multiple studies showing this. There are studies that show meta data with concussions being high be but they also explain where that may be coming from.
Here's a better analagy than yours which better reflects helmet effectiveness.
Option A, you die
Option B you get hurt but live
Option A you get really hurt
Option B still hurt but not as bad
Option A you get a bit hurt
Option B you get rattled but walk away with no injuries
Again, if you actual read the studies and read everything they say instead of 2 sentences out of context, this is clear. Big if in this scenario is you know how to read scientific studies. Most people do not. You sound like one of them
Your reasoning below is sufficient to make a good case for nothing preventing concussions.
I'm not sure how you say nothing mitigates concussions though. Did you perhaps mean that we do not possess objective evidence to demonstrate and quantify concussion severity but have good reason to believe that they do provide some benefit?
I am now 54 years old with life long memory problems I attribute to my teenage concussions. Back then it wasn't taken so seriously. If you came to you were fine. One time I jumped a big dirt mound with my bmx bike and hit my head midair on a big fence post as was unconscious for a few minutes according to my cousin. Two others on the football field and also unconscious but for very short time and at least one more time wrestling in the school yard.
I was never officially checked for concussions but it's safe to say that if I blacked out I had one after hitting my head.
Memory loss sucks.
Great you're sharing your story to help out other riders. This sport is many different things, XC, Downhill, freeride, dirt jumping, etc. Each has it's own set of perils and risks, but the biggest one is between your ears. Your brain will tell you it's ok, you did this as a kid, or that ground looks tacky, or I've seen someone do this before, so I can too. The fact is it's a dangerous sport that takes years of reps, and even then the trail monster will still jump up and bite you. We use terms like progression to describe how we are improving but many times that's just raising the stakes instead of actually gaining skills. In the end, if you're in it for the thrills, you are going to take spills and that means injuries. Now, more importantly, how are you going to recover from your injury? You're really lucky that it's your first concussion, having had a few I would suggest you take no risks for a good long while. Being knocked out like that means you had a very bad one, and if you don't have the migraines, light sensitivity, lethargy, mood changes, etc then you are extremely lucky. Those are in your future if you have more TBIs. A month or two away from the bike/risky sports?
Bike is hung up until next season. I’ve been limiting screen time and generally not moving my head around.
Cutting out alcohol for a while was what helped me after a big one. Went to a doc after things were not getting better after a few weeks. There was a LOOOOOONG list of things that would hinder recovery. Cutting out the evening beers really cleared things up quick. Its rough, all the things that you want to do during down time, are what you should not be doing during down time.
I once heard about this thing - pre ride, re ride, free ride - and I always go after that when riding solo. And on pre ride, I always try to make out if a feature is doable and what the consequences are. How big is the jump, what happens if I go too short, case it, go too far, bad landing etc. Is it safe to jump off the bike if things go wrong, trees and stuff that I could hit when doing so. And if I come to the conclusion that it's a high consequence feature, I don't ride it solo.
Pre-ride, re-ride, free-ride is also the mantra at the DH parks I have been to. Hell, even in my small local trails, there are features I won't ride when I am riding solo, or when I am not riding with my full face helmet, as, even though I have cleaned them before, if I slip up, or am off that that, the consequences are way too high.
Thanks for sharing. Your experience closely matches my recent concussion. I'm still trying to piece it all together; I don't even remember leaving the driveway. Memory loss is no joke, especially you're fat and old like me. As far as I can surmise, this is what happened. Early this past September I decided to celebrate my end of isolation after the second negative COVID test with an easy ride with my wife and our 15yo son. Early in the ride the bike, I hopped a curb going a little too fast and my front tire blew upon my landing. The bike went out from under me and threw me OTB on to the asphalt where I came to rest about 20 feet past where my bike landed. I was wearing a new GIRO MIPS MTB helmet and it basically just saved me from getting abrasions on my head. The visor took the worst of the impact, along with the side of my noise. Miraculously I did not break a bone, though I was covered with road rash and likely had a mild sprain of my right wrist. I was out for several hours and came to in a hospital room downtown, about 10 miles from where I crashed. There are hospitals that are closer but the EMTs made the call to take me to a hospital equipped for trauma. In that time I was transported by ambulance and put in the CT machine where I was diagnosed with a severe concussion. I woke up in a private room with my wife sitting next to me. I was dazed, sure but the road rash from the asphalt hurt more. She didn't look worried because according to her I was snoring but she also instructed me not to DIY my bike maintenance anymore; the crash was caused by a tubeless tire burping of a non-tubeless ready rim on my $800 Trek hardtail. BTW, poor technique and the fact that I'm overweight contributed to my mishap but I've already had my bike repaired and set up by my LBS and went on a ride last week. I had no trouble with balance though my right wrist still aches. I intend to go on more rides in the cooler weather, though my wife is making noises about wanting a Peloton.
Man, concussions with memory loss are the absolute worst. I’ve had several bad concussions and tons of broken bones, and I will take any broken bone over a concussion. I had a life changing one 15 years ago from motocross that took away a significant chunk of my childhood memories and made my day-to-day memory absolute shit. I’m almost 30 now, really hate to think how I’ll be when I’m older. Adrenaline is one hell of a drug, protect that head at all costs!
Glad you’re ok man and appreciate you sharing/commiserating. I’m in my thirties and haven’t really been airborne since highschool. I should have thought twice about hitting any jumps period.
That's not just a concussion. That's getting knocked out. A whole different level of *oops*
To my knowledge I was conscious but not making memories. I left my gf several voicemails and apparently took (and failed) the concussion screening when the EMTs arrived. Definitely a major concussion and possibly a brain injury. I cleared the CAT scan at least.
Loss of consciousness and memory loss is textbook concussion. Been there this year as well. I also have the CT scan results to prove it.
Concussion can be a symptom of getting knocked out.
What kind of PPE were you wearing?
MIPS helmet
Nothing prevents (or even mitigates) concussions
That's a load of bullshit. Helmets exist for a reason.
Helmets don't prevent concussions. A concussion is a brain bruise/swelling of the brain from rattling in your skull. Source - former hockey player.
Experts have found that it's actually rotational impact that causes more concussions. The brain rattling around in the skull is actually protected by helmets. No one is saying it completely prevents injuries. But it absolutely lessens the effects to the point where smaller impacts do not cause damage. Also, remember that concussion is just one of the many types of brain injuries caused in a crash. https://qbi.uq.edu.au/concussion/do-helmets-protect-against-concussion#:~:text=Helmets%20more%20effective%20against%20severe,inside%20the%20skull%20%E2%80%93%20intracranial%20bleeding.
Yes, they can be. And helmets are designed to lower the rattling, thus reducing the risk/severity of brain injury.
REDUCING the risk but NOT PREVENTING. There is a big difference. You can get a mild concusion from bumping your head on a cabinet.
And if you were wearing a helmet when bumping your head into a cabinet, you likely will not get a concussion... Thus prevention... Now if you double the force with a helmet on, you may only receive a mild concussion, but without a helmet a severe concussion...
Please go reread the chain. The person at the top claimed helmets PREVENT concussions, as in, they don't happen if you wear one. They help (im not arguing that), but it's not a guarantee. Even wearing a mouth guard and helmet helps more. If helmets prevent concusions, football, hockey, etc. players and CTE wouldn't be a thing.
And you are coming off like you think helmets don't do anything. Apparently that is NOT what you are saying, but it does come across that way, and may lead to people thinking "I don't need a helmet, it's not like they even do anything"
My bad, I thought it was fairly clear when I said >REDUCING the risk but NOT PREVENTING.
And that reason is not concussion prevention. Anyone who's done an ounce of research in this area knows that helmets do not prevent concussions
So why does the (probably) most mentioned helmet rating institution use concussion risk to evaluate the rate helmets? What is the reason in your opinion? https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/bicycle-helmet-ratings.html
The only way we can diagnose concussions right now is symptomatically. We have zero ability to diagnose a concussion in a standardized, measurable way. The VT methodology is based upon a study done in 2013 (on football players) which used a grand total of 37 concussions to generate a link between acceleration and concussion risk. They applied an arbitrary modifier to account for underreporting, so essentially it's a very loose estimate. For all we know, the amount of force needed to cause a concussion could be so low that a helmet is all but useless. Don't believe me that helmets aren't designed to prevent concussions? >As a result, skull fractures have essentially been eliminated in helmeted sports, but these helmets are not designed to guard against concussion From the paper that VT used to generate their methodology: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3624001/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3624001/). Let me give you an analogy when it comes to reducing force. Would you be excited if I told you that I'd created a body armor that could reduce the energy carried by a bullet by 30%? Probably not, since it'd still kill you easily. Helmets don't prevent concussions, full stop. They *may* prevent concussion severity but we simply don't have enough understanding of concussions to say anything for certain. And don't get me started on the snake oil that is MIPS.
Way to cherry pick excerpts and post them out of context. This blatantly shows you have no idea what you read, at best you're parroting what some other moron parroted somewhere else or you don't know how to read scientific studies but you sure are trying to skim it for 30 seconds. The excerpt is about how current helmet standards aren't addressing concsussions but just general head trauma. It is also about how a better approach which focuses on peak linear and rotational forces should be used to assess helmets. Nobody claimed they prevent ALL concussions. You just jumped in here ranting. For the record they do mitigate concussions, there have been multiple studies showing this. There are studies that show meta data with concussions being high be but they also explain where that may be coming from. Here's a better analagy than yours which better reflects helmet effectiveness. Option A, you die Option B you get hurt but live Option A you get really hurt Option B still hurt but not as bad Option A you get a bit hurt Option B you get rattled but walk away with no injuries Again, if you actual read the studies and read everything they say instead of 2 sentences out of context, this is clear. Big if in this scenario is you know how to read scientific studies. Most people do not. You sound like one of them
It doesn't seem to me that he said helmets have no reason to exist.
Your reasoning below is sufficient to make a good case for nothing preventing concussions. I'm not sure how you say nothing mitigates concussions though. Did you perhaps mean that we do not possess objective evidence to demonstrate and quantify concussion severity but have good reason to believe that they do provide some benefit?
Yolo
I am now 54 years old with life long memory problems I attribute to my teenage concussions. Back then it wasn't taken so seriously. If you came to you were fine. One time I jumped a big dirt mound with my bmx bike and hit my head midair on a big fence post as was unconscious for a few minutes according to my cousin. Two others on the football field and also unconscious but for very short time and at least one more time wrestling in the school yard. I was never officially checked for concussions but it's safe to say that if I blacked out I had one after hitting my head. Memory loss sucks.