Many people in the past thought that headaches that people experience long after suffering a concussion were psychological. Professionals even subscribed to that school of thought based on magnetic imaging or CT studies of the head, which revealed no patient abnormality results following a concussion. It was clinically thought that mild head injury attributed to a concussion generally cleared up after a few minutes or days. However, technological studies now reveal that even though headaches last for those short time periods, concussion headaches may continue for months and even years.

Concussion Headaches Briefly Alter Thought Process

Chronic headaches following a concussion are not unusual at all. Remember that your head injury might have caused you to become briefly unconscious, and your brain thought processes were altered for a period of time. Microscopic studies of the brain reportedly concur that your brain's nerve fibers are affected by the trauma of a concussion.

Resting Contributes to Concussion Recovery

Neurologists advise that rest is an important aspect of recovery from a concussion since rest periods serve to heal your brain. You must consult with your neurologist or primary care physician so that monitoring and healing can be carefully documented. They will advise you when the time is right for you to resume your activities of daily living.

Structural Brain Injury

Medical professionals are of the opinion that concussion symptoms following head injuries are the result of structural brain injury, according to the Mayo Clinic. The professionals also concede that there are related psychological issues that contribute to the headaches that patients experience following concussions.

Symptoms of Emotional and Physiological Reactions

Neurologists and other medical experts maintain that headaches, sleep disorders and dizziness that you are afflicted with following concussions may also be caused by previous diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression or anxiety. The general medical opinion is that physiological and emotional reactions of individual patients can contribute to their development of concussion symptoms.

Treating Children with Concussions

If your child is the one suffering from concussion headaches, be sure to consult with the child's primary care physician for proper care. Medical professionals recommend that you take steps to make sure that your child obeys rest rules. The experts also suggest that you have your child stop all technological texting and video game activities as well. Children should not be engaging in any kind of strenuous activities whatsoever for a few days following a concussion injury.

Children have the same capacity to recover from a concussion as adults do when appropriate resting periods are observed. They can resume activities as dictated by their physicians. However, you should observe whether your child relapses and the headaches return. In that case, consult with the child's physician again, and a decision may be made on whether to give the child over-the-counter analgesic medication. Other options, such as chiropractic assistance from specialists like the Davidson Chiropractic Clinic, can also help. You must remember to keep your child from suffering repeated concussions.