Physical Activity after TBI: Still More Limited Than Before

Where are you now in terms of physical activity after TBI? Up to  a non-athletic adult’s level?

I go to the gym.  I’m not allowed to raise my heart rate too high.  Just, if I lift weights, lift very light.  Now I’m lifting weights that I would have lifted at, as a 10‑year-old would have been having now.  It, it’s very light.  I do a lot of reps but that’s only on a good day.

Unfortunately I’m, I call it, I’m on the world’s longest roller coaster ride.  I have good days.  I have bad days.  I have good weeks.  I have bad weeks.  I have good hours.  I have bad hours.  So, I get up in the morning thinking all right.  I feel good.  I’m going to go to the gym.  You know, an hour later I’m in pain.  I’m, my head is under a lot of pressure and I’m, I’m just lost.

Do you have any physical injuries from the accident that could effect your physical activity after TBI?

I don’t know.

Neck injury or you didn’t break any arms, legs?

No.

Did you have any physical disability that didn’t relate to walking and balance?

Physical, I don’t think so.

You don’t have any right-sided or left-sided weakness or partial paralysis that could effect your physical activity after TBI?

No.

Any loss of feeling?

No.

Now, you’re talking about when you go to the gym, you feel the pain.  Where are you hurting?

My head.

And it’s entirely your head?

Sometimes if I go to the gym and if I even like yesterday or, or the day before I went, the day before yesterday, I went to the gym and I exercised and in the beginning of exercise, you know, pain went right to my head.  So, I had to slow the exercise down and try and work through the pain.  As far as the pains, I get regular exercise pain as far as I didn’t go to the gym for a week because  I was wreck last week.  Now, to start lifting weights again, it’s like starting over again, so I get that muscle, muscle fatigue or muscle pain but that’s, unfortunately, that happens a lot.

Next in Part Fifteen – Headaches Come in Waves After Severe TBI

By Attorney Gordon Johnson

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