First, a recent news item that made me chuckle. A researcher in Pittsburgh has discovered through study of 127 headache clinic patients that depression and anxiety go along with chronic severe headaches. We all could have told her that. Right?
The most important news I've collected recently concerns concussions. I've written on this topic before, but a new study performed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is very interesting. Confirming that people who have suffered a concussion are at higher risk of having another, especially when they haven't had sufficient time to recover from the first, these researchers say concussions can cause permanent brain damage, vision impairment, or death.
Are you listening, Troy Aikman? He has had 9 concussions at this writing! I know the Cowboys have a problem and they really need Aikman, but frankly I find it totally irresponsible for the powers-that-be in Dallas to let him continue to play. For Steve Young it took marriage and impending fatherhood to give him another take on this issue. What will it take for Troy?
Anyway, back to the study. Several of their conclusions are worth noting. One is that high school football players are more likely to be injured than college players, perhaps because the safety equipment is better in college and the players are more skilled by then. However, 31% of the athletes in this study who suffered a concussion started playing again the same day they were injured. Even the players who had a headache after their injury went on to play.
I was surprised to learn that there are no more injuries on artificial turf than on grass, but on the other hand concussions on artificial turf are usually more serious. Not as many football players suffer concussions as had been estimated previously, but it is still a problem that parents should be alert for. The coach may allow a high school player to go back on the field after a concussion, so parents must not let the boy's desire to play and not "wimp out" override the fact that his brain needs time to recover.
Now for a couple of combination headaches. One, which is a combination of trigeminal neuralgia and cluster headache symptoms, is being called cluster-tic syndrome (CTS). There are only a few reported cases, but patients seem to respond well to a series of injections of streptomycin and lidocaine. Most of the patients had trigeminal neuralgia first, then developed the cluster symptoms.
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