OK i had a heavy sparring session (boxing) the other day with a guy 2 stone heavier than me. Usually i have no problem, but he hit me, and bloody hard. The day after i go on the bags and notice i cant punch that hard, because it hurts my head, like my brains bruised. I shake my head and again it feels like my brains bruised inside my skull. Now a couple of days later im getting headaches now and again, and the shaking head thing hurts again. Is this normal, ive never been hit this hard before, somebody told me its concussion which sounds about right but i dont want to take any chances. Thanks again J
It's most likely grade 1 concussion, go to the hospital/doctors. I cannot stress how important this is.
yeh i had a similar thing the other week and my eyesight went funny. Get to the docs asap. He will check you and prob tell you not to sparr for a week depending on his verdict. no harm in going to see him
Adam is correct. Get to a hospital and have them take a look. Despite how much I love boxing... there are some real risks when it comes to getting clocked in head repeatedly. Even more so if the guy is much heavier than you. You could have some sort of very low grade hemorage due to micro lacerations or bruising due to coup and counter coup movement of the brain in the skull upon impact.... even worse... if you don't get it checked by a professional you won't not even know it... the headaches could be a symptom of that. Not something you want to go on not knowing about. This is why for amatuer boxers and professionals they are often required by law to take a cat-scan so they can establish a baseline - then if there are serious problems due to a fight at a later date they can check against that baseline scan. They'd be looking for signs of prior bleeds, bruising or micro lacerations. (This varies from state to state - but I believe it's the law for amatuer boxers in the US wishing to fight in the annual Golden Gloves competitions) There are also such problems like preexisting hereditary conditions that can make you much more susceptible to brain injury than others. I remember stories of a boxer training out of Brendan Ingle's gym in Sheffield who was slated to be the best up and coming thing in boxing - until he had a cat-scan that showed a hereditary weakness of some kind in his brain or the blood vessels in his brain. The doctors told him that the right hit could kill him instantly... so he quit. This was a guy who had devoted a good chunk of his life to being a great boxer and had enough natural talent that an old salt like Brendan Engle took him under his wing and helped him to develop his skills. Remember it was Brendan Ingle who coached the likes of Herol 'Bomber' Graham and 'Prince' Naseem Hamed. Anyhow - long story short.... get it checked out without delay!!!
stop posting and go see a doctor. really. slip said it in another thread... why are you asking a bunch of people on the internet about this when it is apparent something is wrong? Go. Now. Shoo!
Well, it all seems so urgent. I was planning on waiting till monday to see if it would calm down then go to the hospital. Think thats a better idea? Its Saturday tommorow, i have a lot planned
I think you should go whether it "calms down" or not, and I think you should only wait if you do NOT train between now and then. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Im not training again till monday, sorry forgot to mention that. Danmit now you all got me worried. I may go tommorow just for the sake of it.
LOL if yer only symptom is a headache it's prolly not anything real serious- but dude...it's yer BRAIN we're talking about here. Go get it checked out, for peace of mind if nothing else. In other words - I wouldn't lose sleep over it, but I wouldn't take another pop in the melon before I got a professional to take a peek. Seriously.
Went to the hopital. He didnt scan my brain, he did lots of checks. Finger to nose, eye scans, looked in my ears. Whiplash, thats what i bloody got, whiplash. Said i probably had bruising of the brain which is causing the headaches, and the whiplash is also contributing to the headaches. I grilled him a bit because i wanted a scan just to check. But he seemed to know his stuff and said if it was anything worst their would have been tell tale signs from the checks he did.
Good for you bro. Nice to see someone actually follow some good advice and look out for themselves. Just my quick take on what he probably did. Eye scans - he's probably checking for any sign of detached retina's. If he had you follow his finger from left to right and had you bring your finger to nose... sort of like a drunk driving test... then he was looking for signs that you eyes were having problems from the impact of punches to the head. Retina's can actually be detached from the impact of a strong punch. As well - if there is any sort of accute dialation of the pupil due to impact it's very easy for these sorts of things to cause headaches as well. Looking in ears - Obviously he's looking to make sure you head isn't a solid block. Seriously though - a common procedure for assessing head trauma is to look for signs of blood or a clear fluid that is comes basically from the membrane that surrounds the brain. Blood from the ears is bad - but blood with a halo of clear white fluid is even worse! It's usually assessed at the time of injury by holding a piece of guaze to the ear and then looking for the halo effect. Here is something that you will find interesting. It's breaks it down in better terms than I can and is something that every boxer should pay attention to. Obviously most of these sorts of articles focus on head trauma due to car accidents but the carry over to boxing injuries is obvious. Glad to know it wasn't something worse.
Jamo2 I have to mention this since I read your post and would feel irresponsible if I did not add my several pence worth. Is that redundant (several and Pence)??? You should not work out or receive any more of those types of blows that will cause the same problem. The brain is to valueable to treat it wrong... I would suggest you read a book by Carl Sagan, Brocha's Brain. Very good book and very important for you at this time of your life and injury. :bang: Not to be duplicated. Gary
Unfortunately this is part and parcel with full contact martial arts. And part of the implicit agreement when you choose to box. There are many other sports where the same kinds of impact to the head happen. I'm sure no one sets out to get hit - but it does happen. Such is life.
Thanks slip ill read that article when i finish work. And thanks all for your advice, i was getting slightly worried for a second. And no way am i quitting boxing because of this. People have taken harder blows than me and ended up fine. Haha, tell you a story. Once the doctor had finished checking me over and told me what was wrong, as a parting note he said "why dont you take a safer sport...like karate" After a few seconds mulling over whether i should make some rude "thats why boxers dont get picked on" or something joke, i finally decided to let it slide. Simply laughed, shook my head and walk off.
