Hello all, newbie here. I am recovering from 2 head injuries I have had on the last 6 weeks. Been dealing w the normal stuff, headache, light/sound sensitivity, tinnitus, sleep problems, mood disorders, some dizziness. I have a complicated medical history centered around rheumatoid arthritis I described in the intro section.

I have been feeling better this week at just over 3 weeks out from my 2nd injury which was blunt trauma to right temperal lobe side of head. Doc said I could try xc skiing at a mellow pace at a level where I could have a conversation, in other words not to excersise at a level where I would be out of breath.

So 5 days ago, I thought I was feeling pretty good and it was such a nice warm blue sky day here in southern rockies, I went for a "mellow" skate ski. Kind of hard to be mellow skate skiing. Took lots of breaks when I got winded, but felt very out of shape as I have not done much physical for last 5 weeks since 1st head injury. I could tell my head was not right and even tripped 2 times, so balance was not right either. The 2 falls were not jarring, just tipped over, unusual for me.

That evening, bad pounding headache which felt like a lot of pressure from both temples and behind my eyes, lots of ringing in my ears. Was brushing my teeth and noticed my eyes in the mirror. In both eyes, the small veins/arteries in the whites of both eyes were bright red and huge like I have ever seen before, bunch of bulging bright red vessels, no leakage into the whites like a bleeding hemmorrage, just real bloodshot and bulging. Kinda scary, never seen my eyes like that. Sleep for about 18 hours that night and felt like it set me back a few days. Eyes returned to normal and feeling better now.

In retrospec, I should have done regular Nordic skiing where I can just shuffle along at a turtle pace, skating takes a lot of energy. Anyone know what caused the bloodshot eyes? I am guessing high inter cranial BP as the vessels are not able to move blood around normal??? Anyone else have a reaction like this? Hope I have not done any damage. I will probably try to do something tomorrow, ski or maybe snowshoe, as we have fresh, soft snow coming in and I feel I need to get some exercise to help w recovery and mood.

I would recommend a stationary bike or a treadmill (I prefer the stationary bike as the treadmill tends to have too much impact forces on my head) at first.
This way you can do a very controlled set of exercises and see if at certain level you start to feel worse.

If you don't have access to the equipment, try easy walks, see how it feels. One thing that many of us found out the hard way is that sometimes the results of your exertion don't hit you right away, but a day or even two later, so need to be very careful.

I do 20 minutes on a stationary bike every day watching my heart rate. Several months ago I started at about 70-80 bpm (beats per minute), basically a super light exercise, and now I'm doing it at about 110 bpm and can tolerate it much easier, where in the beginning even at 80 bpm I was having issues.
I also try to walk the same route every time and use an iPhone app to track my speed, and trying to increase speed/distance very gradually.

With these injuries you want to be very cautious, it's best not to over do it, especially early in the recovery, because setbacks can be very bad/frustrating.

OK, sounds like a good plan. I do not have a safe environment for walking due to ice ( that was the cause of both injuries), but I do have an elliptical machine in my garage. I will try some mellow xc on the nice days and do not mind wearing a helmet. I have the app you mentioned, just have not tried to use it. I am doing a bit better last few days but do not want to risk a setback.

What about the bloodshot eyes? Anyone have a clue what that was about or had a similar experience. Kinda scary, maybe I should let my doc know. I appreciate everyone's input, this a great resource for health info.

mcmars--I'd assume that the bloodshot eyes are exactly what you thought they were; caused from overexertion. While I haven't seen my eyes bright red or "bulging", I've found that when I am really stressing my body/brain from overexertion my eyes will get very glassy and noticeably more red. When this happens, it's generally a sign that I need to step away from the computer/reading/etc. until I feel and look more relaxed.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/47...r-an-exercise/

I do get bloodshot eyes usually at the end of a work day, when I've been working on a computer all day, a lot of times my eyes feel dry and look really red, like I've been drinking

Have you been taking a lot of fish oil pills or other anti inflammatories to help heal the concussion? I was taking too many things that had blood thinning properties (fish oil and turmeric, plus Choline CDP that enhances blood thinning) and I got a broken blood vessel in my eye then a nose bleed then a cut that bled a lot...so I stopped all my vitamins for now.